During the absence of the Abbe in an excursion he made for his health, I prevailed on the Queen to write a postscript to the petition of a cure, one of my friends, who was soliciting a priory near his curacy, with the intention of retiring to it.  I obtained it for him.  On the Abbe’s return he told me very harshly that I should act in a manner quite contrary to the King’s wishes if I again obtained such a favour; that the wealth of the Church was for the future to be invariably devoted to the support of the poorer nobility; that it was the interest of the State that it should be so; and a plebeian priest, happy in a good curacy, had only to remain curate.

Can we be astonished at the part shortly afterwards taken by the deputies of the Third Estate, when called to the States General?

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Elegant entertainments were given to Doctor Franklin
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Favourite of a queen is not, in France, a happy one
History of the man with the iron mask
Of course I shall be either hissed or applauded. 
She often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony
Shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal
Simplicity of the Queen’s toilet began to be strongly censured
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The three ministers, more ambitious than amorous
Well, this is royally ill played! 
While the Queen was blamed, she was blindly imitated