Paul himself cared but little for female attractions or graces; but the archduchess was charmed with her union of liveliness and dignity, which surpassed all her previous experiences of courts; and one of her ladies, Madame d'Oberkirch, who has left behind her some memoirs, to which all succeeding writers have been indebted for many particulars of this visit, could scarcely find words to describe the impression the queen's beauty had made upon her and all her fellow-travelers.

"The queen was marvelously beautiful; she fascinated every eye.

It was absolutely impossible for any one to display a greater grace and nobility of demeanor.[8]" Madame d'Oberkirch, like herself, was German by birth; and Marie Antoinette begged her to speak German to her, that she might refresh her recollection of her native language; but she found that she had almost forgotten it.
"Ah," said she, "German is a fine language; but French, in the mouths of my children, seems to me the finest language in the world." And in the same spirit of entire adoption of French feelings, and even of French prejudices, she declared to the baroness that though the Rhine and the Danube were both noble rivers, the Seine was so much more beautiful that it had made her forget them both.
But her preference for every thing French did not make her neglect the duties of hospitality to her foreign visitors; she wished rather that they should carry with them as fixed an idea as she herself entertained of the superiority of France to their own country, in this as in every other particular.

And she gave two magnificent entertainments in their honor at the Little Trianon, displaying the beauties of her garden by day, and also by night, by an illumination of extraordinary splendor.

They were highly delighted with the beauty and the novelty of a scene such as they had never before witnessed; but her pleasure was in a great degree marred by the indecent boldness of one whose sacred profession, as well as his ancient lineage, ought to have restrained him from such misconduct, though it was but too completely in harmony with his previous life.