It was at this stage in her brilliant career that the Duchesse came under the spell of the Comte de Vaudreuil—handsome, courtly, an intriguer to his finger-tips, a man of many accomplishments, of a supple tongue, and with great wealth to lend a glamour to his gifts. A man of rare fascination, and as dangerous as he was fascinating.
The woman who had carried a level head through so much unaccustomed splendour and power became the veriest slave of this handsome, honey-tongued Comte, who ruled her, as she in turn ruled the Queen. At his bidding she made and unmade ministers; she obtained for him pensions and high offices, and robbed the treasury of nearly two million livres to fill his pockets. When Marie Antoinette at last ventured to thwart the Comte in his ambition to become the Dauphin's Governor, he retaliated by poisoning the Duchesse's mind against her, and bringing about the first estrangement between the friends.
Torn between her infatuation for Vaudreuil and her love of the Queen, the Duchesse was in an awkward dilemma. It became necessary to choose between the two rivals; and that Vaudreuil's spell proved the stronger, her increasing coldness to Marie Antoinette soon proved. It was the "rift within the lute" which was to make the music of their friendship mute. The Queen gradually withdrew herself from the Duchesse's salon, where she was sure to meet the insolent Vaudreuil; and thus the gulf gradually widened until the severance was complete.
Evil days were now coming for Marie Antoinette. The affair of the diamond necklace had made powerful enemies; the Polignac family, taking the side of Vaudreuil and their protectress, were arrayed against her; France was rising on the tide of hate to sweep the Austrian and her husband from the throne. The horrors of the Revolution were being loosed, and all who could were flying for safety to other lands.
At this terrible crisis the Queen's thoughts were less for herself than for her friend of happier days. She sought the Duchesse and begged her to fly while there was still time. Then it was that, touched by such unselfish love, the Duchesse's pride broke down, and all her old love for her sovereign lady returned in full flood. Bursting into tears, she flung herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, and begged forgiveness from the woman whose friendship she had spurned, and whose life she had, however innocently, done so much to ruin.
A few hours later the Duchesse, disguised as a chambermaid and sitting by the coachman's side, was making her escape from France in company with her husband and other members of her family, while the Queen who had loved her so well was left to take the last tragic steps that had the guillotine for goal.
Just before the carriage started on its long and perilous journey, a note was thrust into the "chambermaid's" hand—"Adieu, most tender of friends. How terrible is this word! But it is necessary. Adieu! I have only strength left to embrace you. Your heart-broken Marie."
Then ensued for the Duchesse a time of perilous journeying to safety. At Sens her carriage was surrounded by a fierce mob, clamouring for the blood of the "aristos." "Are the Polignacs still with the Queen?" demanded one man, thrusting his head into the carriage. "The Polignacs?" answered the Abbé de Baliviere, with marvellous presence of mind. "Oh! they have left Versailles long ago. Those vile persons have been got rid of." And with a howl of baffled rage the mob allowed the carriage to continue its journey, taking with it the most hated of all the Polignacs, the chambermaid, whose heart, we may be sure, was in her mouth!
Thus the Duchesse made her way through Switzerland, to Turin, and to Rome, and to Venice, where news came to her of the fall ot the monarchy and Louis' execution. By the time she reached Vienna on her restless wanderings, her health, shattered by hardships and by her anxiety for her friend, broke down completely. She was a dying woman; and when, a few months later, she learned that Marie Antoinette was also dead—"a natural death," they mercifully told her—"Thank God!" she exclaimed; "now, at last, she is free from those bloodthirsty monsters! Now I can die in peace."