and the King was displeased at M. Necker's ambition, and the assurance
with which he displayed it. Madame la Marechale de Beauvau assured me
that the Marechal de Castries saw the minute of M. Necker's letter, and
that he likewise saw the altered copy.

The interest which the Queen took in M. Necker died away during his
retirement, and at last changed into strong prejudice against him. He
wrote too much about the measures he would have pursued, and the benefits
that would have resulted to the State from them. The ministers who
succeeded him thought their operations embarrassed by the care that M.
Necker and his partisans incessantly took to occupy the public with his
plans; his friends were too ardent. The Queen discerned a party spirit in
these combinations, and sided wholly with his enemies.

After those inefficient comptrollers-general, Messieurs Joly de Fleury and
d'Ormesson, it became necessary to resort to a man of more acknowledged
talent, and the Queen's friends, at that time combining with the Comte
d'Artois and with M. de Vergennes, got M. de Calonne appointed. The Queen
was highly displeased, and her close intimacy with the Duchesse de
Polignac began to suffer for this.

Her Majesty, continuing to converse with me upon the difficulties she had
met with in private life, told me that ambitious men without merit
sometimes found means to gain their ends by dint of importunity, and that
she had to blame herself for having procured M. d'Adhemar's appointment to
the London embassy, merely because he teased her into it at the Duchess's
house. She added, however, that it was at a time of perfect peace with
the English; that the Ministry knew the inefficiency of M. d'Adhemar as
well as she did, and that he could do neither harm nor good.