timulus to
impel her to forward the means of justice, the Princess would call the
influence of the Princesse Elizabeth to her aid; and Elizabeth never sued
in vain.

Marie Antoinette paid the greatest attention to all memorials. They were
regularly collected every week by Her Majesty's private secretary, the
Abbe Vermond. I have myself seen many of them, when returned from the
Princesse de Lamballe, with the Queen's marginal notes in her own
handwriting, and the answers dictated by Her Majesty to the different,
officers of the departments relative to the nature of the respective
demands. She always recommended the greatest attention to all public
documents, and annexed notes to such as passed through her hands to
prevent their being thrown aside or lost.

One of those who were least satisfied with the appointment of the
Princesse de Lamballe to the office of superintendent was her
brother-in-law, the Duc d'Orleans, who, having attempted her virtue on
various occasions and been repulsed, became mortified and alarmed at her
situation as a check to his future enterprise.

At one time the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans were most constant and
assiduous in their attendance on Marie Antoinette. They were at all her
parties. The Queen was very fond of the Duchess. It is supposed that
the interest Her Majesty took in that lady, and the steps to which some
time afterwards that interest led, planted the first seeds of the
unrelenting and misguided hostility which, in the deadliest times of the
Revolution, animated the Orleanists against the throne.

The Duc d'Orleans, then Duc de Chartres, was never a favourite of the
Queen. He was only tolerated at Court on account of his wife and of the
great intimacy which subsisted between him and the Comte d'Artois. Louis
XVI. had often expressed his disapprobation of the Duke's character,
which his conduct daily justified.

The Princesse de Lamballe could have no cause to think of her
brother-in-law but with horror. He had insulted her, and, in revenge at
his defeat, had, it was said, deprived her, by the most awful means, of
her husband. The Princess was tenderly attached to her sister-in-law,
the Duchess. Her attachment could not but make her look very
unfavourably upon the circumstance of the Duke's subjecting his wife to
the humiliation of residing in the palace with Madame de Genlis, and
being forced to receive a person of morals so incorrect as the guardian
of her children