If the Queen ever had any doubt that she had at last found a friend who loved her for herself, the doubt was now finally dissipated.  Such an unselfish love as this was a treasure to be prized; and from this moment Queen and waiting-woman were inseparable.  When they were not strolling arm-in-arm in the corridors or gardens of Versailles, Her Majesty was spending her days in Madame’s apartments, where, as she said, “We are no longer Queen and subject, but just dear friends.”

So unhappy was Marie Antoinette apart from her new friend that, when Madame de Polignac gave birth to a child at Passy, the Court itself was moved to La Muette, so that the Queen could play the part of nurse by her friend’s bedside.

Such, now, was the Queen’s devotion that there was no favour she would not have gladly showered on the Comtesse; but to all such offers Madame turned a deaf ear.  She wanted nothing but Marie Antoinette’s love and friendship for herself; but if the Queen, in her goodness, chose to extend her favour to Madame’s relatives—­well, that was another matter.

Thus it was that Comte Jules soon blossomed into a Duke, and Madame perforce became a Duchess, with a coveted tabouret at Court.  But they were still poor, in spite of an equerry’s pay, and heavily in debt, a matter which must be seen to.  The Queen’s purse satisfied every creditor, to the tune of four hundred thousand livres, and Duc Jules found himself lord of an estate which added seventy thousand livres yearly to his exchequer, with another annual eighty thousand livres as revenue for his office of Director-General of Posts.

Of course, if the Queen would be so foolishly generous, it was not the Duchesse’s fault, and when Marie Antoinette next proposed to give a dowry of eight hundred thousand livres to the Duchesse’s daughter on her marriage to the Comte de Guiche, and to raise the bridegroom to a dukedom—­well, it was “very sweet of Her Majesty,” and it was not for her to oppose such a lavish autocrat.

Thus the shower of Royal favours grew; and it is perhaps little wonder that each new evidence of the Queen’s prodigality was greeted with curses by the mob clamouring for bread outside the palace gates; while even her father’s minister, Kaunitz, in far Vienna, brutally dubbed the Duchesse and her family, “a gang of thieves.”

Diane de Polignac, the Duchesse’s sister-in-law, had long been made a Countess and placed in charge of a Royal household; and the grateful shower fell on all who had any connection with the favourite.  Her father-in-law, Cardinal de Polignac’s nephew, was rescued from his rustic poverty to play the exalted role of ambassador; an uncle was raised per saltum from cure to bishop.  The Duchesse’s widowed aunt was made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and her son-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded further for his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure offices at Court.