81.

M. Necker had retired. He had been exasperated by a piece of treachery in
the old minister, for which he could not forgive him. I knew something of
this intrigue at the time; it has since been fully explained to me by
Madame la Marechale de Beauvau. M. Necker saw that his credit at Court
was declining, and fearing lest that circumstance should injure his
financial operations, he requested the King to grant him some favour which
might show the public that he had not lost the confidence of his
sovereign. He concluded his letter by pointing out five requests--such an
office, or such a mark of distinction, or such a badge of honour, and so
on, and handed it to M. de Maurepas. The or's were changed into and's;
and the King was displeased at M. Necker's ambition, and the assurance
with which he displayed it. Madame la Marechale de Beauvau assured me
that the Marechal de Castries saw the minute of M. Necker's letter, and
that he likewise saw the altered copy.

The interest which the Queen took in M. Necker died away during his
retirement, and at last changed into strong prejudice against him. He
wrote too much about the measures he would have pursued, and the benefits
that would have resulted to the State from them. The ministers who
succeeded him thought their operations embarrassed by the care that M.
Necker and his partisans incessantly took to occupy the public with his
plans; his friends were too ardent. The Queen discerned a party spirit in
these combinations, and sided wholly with his enemies.

After those inefficient comptrollers-general, Messieurs Joly de Fleury and
d'Ormesson, it became necessary to resort to a man of more acknowledged
talent, and the Queen's friends, at that time combining with the Comte
d'Artois and with M. de Vergennes, got M. de Calonne appointed. The Queen
was highly displeased, and her close intimacy with the Duchesse de
Polignac began to suffer for this.

Her Majesty, continuing to converse with me upon the difficulties she had
met with in private life, told me that ambitious men without merit
sometimes found means to gain their ends by dint of importunity, and that
she had to blame herself for having procured M. d'Adhemar's appointment to
the London embassy, merely because he teased her into it at the Duchess's
house. She added, however, that it was at a time of perfect peace with
the English; that the Ministry knew the inefficiency of M. d'Adhemar as
well as she did, and th