I have friends; yes, thank
Heaven! I have friends who prize me highly, and who are every hour
prepared to give their life for their queen. I have true and
faithful servants; but no one will appear and give evidence that
Marie Antoinette has ever had an illicit lover. My only lover has
been the king, my husband, and I hope before God that he will always
remain so, so long as I live. But this is exactly what the noble
princesses my aunts, what the Count de Provence, and the whole party
of the old court, never will forgive me for. I have had the good
fortune to win the love of my husband. The king, despite all
calumnies and all intrigues, lowered his glance to the poor young
woman who stood solitary near him, and whom he had been taught to
prize lightly and to despise, and then he found that she was not so
simple, stupid, and ugly, as she had been painted. He began to take
some notice of her, and then, God be thanked, he overlooked the fact
that she was of Austrian blood, and that the policy of his
predecessor had urged her upon him; his heart warmed to her in love,
and Marie Antoinette received this love as a gracious gift of God,
as the happiness of her life. Yes, madame, I may say it with pride
and joy, the king loves me, he trusts me, and therefore his wife
stands nearer to him than even his exalted aunts, and I am the one
whom he most trusts and whom he selects to be his chief adviser.
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