"Once in particular, at an entertainment given to the Emperor Joseph at
Trianon, I remember the Queen took the opportunity to repeat how much she
felt herself mortified at the course in which I persisted of never making
my appearance at the Duchesse de Polignac's parties.

"I replied, 'I believe, Madame, we are both of us disappointed; but Your
Majesty has your remedy, by replacing me by a lady less scrupulous.'

"'I was too sanguine,' said the Queen, 'in having flattered myself that I
had chosen two friends who would form, from their sympathising and
uniting their sentiments with each other, a society which would embellish
my private life as much as they adorn their public stations.'

"I said it was by my unalterable friendship and my loyal and dutiful
attachment to the sacred person of Her Majesty that I had been prompted
to a line of conduct in which the motives whence it arose would impel me
to persist while I had the honour to hold a situation under Her Majesty's
roof.

"The Queen, embracing me, exclaimed, 'That will be for life, for death
alone can separate us!'

"This is the last conversation I recollect to have had with the Queen
upon this distressing subject.

"The Abbe Vermond, who had been Her Majesty's tutor, but who was now her
private secretary, began to dread that his influence over her, from
having been her confidential adviser from her youth upwards, would suffer
from the rising authority of the all-predominant new favourite.
Consequently, he thought proper to remonstrate, not with Her Majesty, but