It was true that Marie Antoinette did often allow herself to be far too
much influenced by those princesses. She confessed to Mercy that she was
afraid to displease or thwart them; a feeling which he regarded as the
more unfortunate because, when she was not actuated by that consideration,
her own judgment and her own impulses would always guide her aright; and
because, too, the elder princesses were the most unsafe of all advisers.
They were notoriously jealous of one another, and each at times tried to
inspire her niece with her feelings toward the other two; and they often,
without meaning it, played into the hands of the mistress's cabal,
intriguing for selfish objects of their own with as much malice and
meanness as could be practiced by Madame du Barri herself.

Still, in spite of these drawbacks, it was almost inevitable that they
should have great influence over their niece. Their experience might well
be presumed by her to have given them a correct insight into the ways of
the court, and the best mode of behaving to their own father; and she, a
foreigner and almost a child, was not only in need of counsel and
guidance, but had no one else of her own sex to whom she could so
naturally look for information or advice. They were, as she explained to
Mercy, her only society; and, though she was too clear-sighted not to see
their faults, and not at times to be aware that she was suffering from
their perverseness, she, like other people, was often compelled to
tolerate what she could not mend, and to shut her eyes to disagreeable
qualities when forced to live on terms of intimacy with the possessors.

On this point Maria Teresa was, perhaps, hardly inclined to make
sufficient allowance for her difficulties, and insisted over and over
again on the mischief which would arise to her from the habit of
surrendering her judgment to these princesses. She told her that, though
far from being devoid of virtues and real merit, "they had never succeeded