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have often regretted the feeling which induced me to interfere. The
notoriety of the discharge of the porter of Trianon, and the odium that
circumstance would have fixed upon the Cardinal, would have made the
Queen's dislike to him still more publicly known, and would probably have
prevented the scandalous and notorious intrigue of the necklace.
The Queen, who was much prejudiced against the King of Sweden, received
him very coldly.
[Gustavus III., King of Sweden, travelled in France under the title
of Comte d'Haga. Upon his accession to the throne, he managed the
revolution which prostrated the authority of the Senate with equal
skill, coolness, and courage. He was assassinated in 1792, at a
masked ball, by Auckarstrum.--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
All that was said of the private character of that sovereign, his
connection with the Comte de Vergennes, from the time of the Revolution
of Sweden, in 1772, the character of his favourite Armfeldt, and the
prejudices of the monarch himself against the Swedes who were well
received at the Court of Versailles, formed the grounds of this dislike.
He came one day uninvited and unexpected, and requested to dine with the
Queen. The Queen received him in the little closet, and desired me to
send for her clerk of the kitchen, that she might be informed whether
there was a proper dinner to set before Comte d'Haga, and add to it if
necessary. The King of Sweden assured her that there would be enough for
him; and I could not help smiling when I thought of the length of the
menu of the dinner of the King and Queen, not half of which would have
made its appearance had they dined in private. The Queen looked
significantly at me, and I withdrew. In the evening she asked me why I
had seemed so astonished when she ordered me to add to her dinner, saying
that I ought instantly to have seen that she was giving the King of
Sweden a lesson for his presumption. I owned to her that the scene had
appeared to me so much in the bourgeois style, that I involuntarily
thought of the cutlets on the gridiron, and the omelette, which in
families in humble circumstances serve to piece out short commons. She
was highly diverted with my answer, and repeated it to the King, who also
laughed heartily at it.
The peace with England satisfied all classes of society interested in the
national honour. The departure of the English commissary from Dunkirk,
who had been fixed at that place ever since the shameful peace of 1763 as
inspector of our navy, occasioned an ecstasy of joy.
[By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) it was stipulated that the
fortifications and port of Dunkirk should be destroyed. By the
Treaty of Paris (1763) a commissary was to reside at Dunkirk to see
that no attempt was made to break this treaty. This stipulation was
revoked by the Peace of Versailles, in 1783.--see DYER'S "Modern
Europe," 1st edition, vol. i., pp. 205-438 and 539.]
The Government communicated to the Englishman the order for his departure
before the treaty was made public. But for that precaution the populace
would have probably committed some excess or other, in order to make the
agent of English power feel the effects of the resentment which had
constantly increased during his stay at that port. Those engaged in
trade were the only persons dissatisfied with the treaty of 1783. That
article which provided for, the free admission of English goods
annihilated at one blow the trade of Rouen and the other manufacturing
towns throughout the kingdom. The English swarmed into Paris. A
considerable number of them were presented at Court. The Queen paid them
marked attention; doubtless she wished them to distinguish between the
esteem she felt for their noble nation and the political views of the
Government in the support it had afforded to the Americans. Discontent
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