that he indemnified himself by unpardonable boorishness on other
occasions. The Count de Provence had but little more polish, and a far
worse temper. Squabbles often took place between the two brothers. Though
both married men, they were still in age only boys; and on more than one
occasion they proceeded to acts of personal violence to each other in her
presence. Luckily no one else was by, and she was able to pacify and
reconcile them; but she could hardly avoid feeling ashamed of having been
called on to exert herself in such a cause, or contrasting the undignified
boisterousness (to give it no worse name) of such scenes with the decorous
self-respect which, with all their simplicity of character, had always
governed the conduct of her own relations.

Not but that, in the opinion of Mercy,[1] the dauphin was endowed by
nature with a more than ordinary share of good qualities. His faults were
only such as proceeded from an excessively bad education. He had many most
essential virtues. He was a young man of perfect integrity and
straightforwardness; he was desirous to hear the truth; and it was never
necessary to beat about the bush, or to have recourse to roundabout ways
of bringing it before him. On the contrary, to speak to him with perfect
frankness was the surest way both to win his esteem and to convince his
reason. On one or two occasions in which he had consulted the embassador,
Mercy had expressed his opinions without the least reserve, and had
perceived that the young prince had liked him better for his candor.

The king still kept up the habit of spending the greater part of the
autumn at Compiègne and Fontainebleau, visits which Marie Antoinette
welcomed as a holiday from the etiquette of Versailles. She wrote word to
her mother that she was growing very fast, and taking asses' milk to keep
up her strength; that that regimen, with constant exercise, was doing her
great good; and that she had gained great praise for the excellence of her