Comtesse Diane de Polignac. She was a favourite of
the Comte d'Artois, and was the first lady in attendance upon the
Countess, his wife.

(The Comtesse Diane de Polignac had a much better education, and
considerably more natural capacity, than her sister-in-law, the Duchess,
and the Queen merely disliked her for her prudish affectation. The
Comtesse d'Artois grew jealous of the Count's intimacy with the Comtesse
Diane. While she considered herself as the only one of the Royal Family
likely to be mother of a future sovereign, she was silent, or perhaps too
much engrossed by her castles in the air to think of anything but
diadems; but when she saw the Queen producing heirs, she grew out of
humour at her lost popularity, and began to turn her attention to her
husband's Endymionship to this now Diana! When she had made up her mind
to get her rival out of her house, she consulted one of the family; but
being told that the best means for a wife to keep her husband out of
harm's way was to provide him with a domestic occupation for his leisure
hours at home, than which nothing could be better than a handmaid under
the same roof, she made a merit of necessity and submitted ever after to
retain the Comtesse Diane, as she had been prudently advised. The
Comtesse Diane, in consequence, remained in the family even up to the
17th October, 1789, when she left Versailles in company with the De
Polignacs and the D'Artois, who all emigrated together from France to
Italy and lived at Stria on the Brenta, near Venice, for some time, till
the Comtesse d'Artois went to Turin.)

The Queen's conduct had always been very cool to her. She deemed her a
self-sufficient coquette. However, the Comtesse Diane was a constant
attendant at the gay parties which were then the fashion of the Court,
though not greatly admired.

The reader will scarcely need to be informed that the event to which I
have just alluded is the introduction by the Comtesse Diane of her
sister-in-law, the Comtesse Julie de Polignac, to the Queen; and having
brought the record up to this point I here once more dismiss my own pen
for that of the Princesse de Lamballe.

It will be obvious to every one that I must have been indebted to the
conversations of my beloved patroness for most of the sentiments and
nearly all the facts I have just been stating; and had the period on
which she has written so little as to drive me to the necessity of
writing for her been less pregna