the descendants of Louis XIV.-MADAME CAMPAN.]

His pride received its birth at Vienna, where Maria Theresa, as much to
give him authority with the Archduchess as to make herself acquainted with
his character, permitted him to mix every evening with the private circle
of her family, into which the future Dauphiness had been admitted for some
time. Joseph II., the elder Archduchess, and a few noblemen honoured by
the confidence of Maria Theresa, composed the party; and reflections on
the world, on courts, and the duties of princes were the usual topics of
conversation. The Abbe de Vermond, in relating these particulars,
confessed the means which he had made use of to gain admission into this
private circle. The Empress, meeting him at the Archduchess's, asked him
if he had formed any connections in Vienna. "None, Madame," replied he;
"the apartment of the Archduchess and the hotel of the ambassador of
France are the only places which the man honoured with the care of the
Princess's education should frequent." A month afterwards Maria Theresa,
through a habit common enough among sovereigns, asked him the same
question, and received precisely the same answer. The next day he
received an order to join the imperial family every evening.

It is extremely probable, from the constant and well-known intercourse
between this man and Comte de Mercy, ambassador of the Empire during the
whole reign of Louis XVI., that he was useful to the Court of Vienna, and
that he often caused the Queen to decide on measures, the consequences of
which she did not consider. Not of high birth, imbued with all the
principles of the modern philosophy, and yet holding to the hierarchy of
the Church more tenaciously than any other ecclesiastic; vain, talkative,
and at the same time cunning and abrupt; very ugly and affecting
singularity; treating the most exalted persons as his equals, sometimes
even as his inferiors, the Abbe de Vermond received ministers and bishops