guide herself so far by her own discretion that there was no one who had
both judgment and authority to control her in her line of conduct or in
any single action. She had, indeed, an adviser whom her mother had
provided for her, though without allowing her to suspect the nature or
full extent of the duties which she had imposed upon him. Maria Teresa had
been in some respects a strict mother, one whom her children in general
feared almost as much as they loved her; and the rigorous superintendence
on some points of conduct which she had exercised over Marie Antoinette
while at home, she was not inclined wholly to resign, even after she had
made her apparently independent. At the moment of her departure from
Vienna, she gave her a letter of advice which she entreated her to read
over every month, and in which the most affectionate and judicious counsel
is more than once couched in a tone of very authoritative command; the
whole letter showing not only the most experienced wisdom and the most
affectionate interest in her daughter's happiness, but likewise a thorough
insight into her character, so precisely are some of the errors against
which the letter most emphatically warns her those into which she most
frequently fell. And she appointed a statesman in whom she deservedly
placed great confidence, the Count de Mercy-Argenteau, her embassador to
the court at Versailles, with the express design that he should always be
at hand to afford the dauphiness his advice in all the difficulties which
she could not avoid foreseeing for her; and who should also keep the
Empress-queen herself fully informed of every particular of her conduct,
and of every transaction by which she was in any way affected. This part
of his commission was wholly unsuspected by the young princess; but the
count discharged such portions of the delicate duty thus imposed upon him
with rare discretion, contriving in its performance to combine the
strictest fidelity to his imperial mistress with the most entire devotion
to the interests of his pupil, and to preserve the unqualified regard and
esteem of both mother and daughter to the end of their lives. Toward the