half of the money was stopped to pay some pensions granted Marie
Leczinska, with which the dauphiness could by no possibility have the
slightest concern. Almost as much more was intrusted to the gentlemen of
her chamber for the expenses of the play table, at which she was expected
to preside, since there was no queen to discharge that duty; and whether
her royal highness's cards won or lost, the money equally disappeared,[11]
and the remainder was distributed in presents to her ladies, at the
discretion of Madame de Noailles. Had not Maria Teresa, when she first
quit Vienna, intrusted Mercy with a thousand pounds for her use, and had
she not herself been singularly economical in her ideas, she would have
been in the humiliating position of being unable to provide for her own
most ordinary wants, and, a matter about which she was even more anxious,
for her constant charities. Yet so inveterate was the mismanagement in
both the court and the government, that it was some time before Mercy
could succeed, by the strongest remonstrances supported by clear proofs of
the real situation of her royal highness, in getting her affairs and her
resources placed upon a proper footing.

In spite of all the efforts of the cabal, the king's regard for her
increased daily. He had not for many years been used to being treated with
respect, and she, not from any artfulness, but from her native propriety
of feeling, which forbade her ever to forget that he was her husband's
grandfather and her king, united a tone of the most loyal respect with her
filial caresses. She called him papa, and even paid him the tacit
compliment of grounding occasional requests on considerations of humanity
and justice, little as such motives had ever influenced Louis, and rarely
as their names had of late been heard in the precincts of the palace. She
even induced him to pardon Madame de Grammont; insisting on such a
concession as due to herself, when she demanded it for one of her own
retinue, till he laughed, and replied, "Madame, your orders shall be