CHAPTER XI
[1] "Gustave III. et la Cour de France," i. p. 279.
[2] The Duc d'Angoulême, afterward dauphin, when the Count d'Artois succeeded to the throne as Charles X.
[3] Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, August 12th, 1775, Arneth, ii., p. 366.
[4] "Le projet de la reine était d'exiger du roi que le Sieur Turgot fût chassé, même envoyé à la Bastille … et il a fallu les représentations les plus fortes et les plus instantes pour arrêter les effets de la colère de la Reine."—Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.
[5] The compiler of "Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et La Famille Royale" (date April 24th, 1776) has a story of a conversation between the king and queen which illustrates her feeling toward the minister. She had just come in from the opera. He asked her "how she had been received by the Parisians; if she had had the usual cheers." She made no reply; the king understood her silence. "Apparently, madame, you had not feathers enough." "I should have liked to have seen you there, sir, with your St. Germain and your Turgot; you would have been rudely hissed." St. Germain was the minister of war.
[6] Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.
[7] January 14th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 414.
[8] The ground-floor of the palace was occupied by the shops of jewelers and milliners, some of whom were great sufferers by the fire.
[9] In a letter written at the end of 1775, Mercy reports to the empress that some of Turgot's economical reforms had produced real discontent among those "qui trouvent leur intérêt dans le désordre," which they had vented in scandalous and seditious writings. Many songs of that character had come out, some of which were attributed to Beaumarchais, "le roi et la reine n'y ont point été respectés."—December 17th, 1775. Arneth, ii, p. 410.