at least to condescend to ask the
first president when the cause would be called on; the Queen replied that
she could not even do that, for it would manifest an interest which it was
her duty not to show.

If the King had not inspired the Queen with a lively feeling of love, it
is quite certain that she yielded him respect and affection for the
goodness of his disposition and the equity of which he gave so many proofs
throughout his reign. One evening she returned very late; she came out of
the King's closet, and said to M. de Misery and myself, drying her eyes,
which were filled with tears, "You see me weeping, but do not be uneasy at
it: these are the sweetest tears that a wife can shed; they are caused by
the impression which the justice and goodness of the King have made upon
me; he has just complied with my request for a revision of the proceedings
against Messieurs de Bellegarde and de Monthieu, victims of the Duc
d'Aiguillon's hatred to the Duc de Choiseul. He has been equally just to
the Duc de Guines in his affair with Tort. It is a happy thing for a queen
to be able to admire and esteem him who has admitted her to a
participation of his throne; and as to you, I congratulate you upon your
having to live under the sceptre of so virtuous a sovereign."

The Queen laid before the King all the memorials of the Duc de Guines,
who, during his embassy to England, was involved in difficulties by a
secretary, who speculated in the public funds in London on his own
account, but in such a manner as to throw a suspicion of it on the
ambassador. Messieurs de Vergennes and Turgot, bearing but little
good-will to the Duc de Guines, who was the friend of the Duc de Choiseul,
were not disposed to render the ambassador any service. The Queen
succeeded in fixing the King's particular attention on this affair, and
the innocence of the Duc de Guines triumphed through the equity of Louis
XVI.

An incessant underhand war was carried on between the friends and
partisans of M. de Choiseul, who were called the Austrians, and those who
sided with Messieurs d'Aiguillon, de Maurepas, and de Vergennes, who, for
the same reason, kept up the intrigues carried on at Court and in Paris
against the Queen. Marie Antoinette, on her part, supported those who had
suffered in this political quarrel, and it was this feeling which led her
to ask for a revision of the proceedings against Messieurs de Bellegarde
and de Monthieu. The first, a colone