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Likings carried too far are baseness or weakness; one must learn to play one's part properly if one wishes to be esteemed; you can do it if you will but restrain yourself a little and follow the advice given you; if you are heedless, I foresee great troubles for you, nothing but squabbles and petty cabals which will render your days miserable.

I wish to prevent this and to conjure you to take the advice of a mother who knows the world, who idolizes her children, and whose only desire is to pass her sorrowful days in being of service to them." Wise counsels of the most illustrious of mothers uselessly lavished upon her daughters! Already the Queen of Naples was beginning to betray the fatal tendencies of her character; whilst, in France, frivolous pleasures, unreflecting friendships, and petty court-intrigues were day by day undermining the position of Marie Antoinette.

"I am much affected at the situation of my daughter," wrote Maria Theresa, in 1776, to Abbe Vermond, whom she had herself not long ago placed with the dauphiness, then quite a child, and whose influence was often pernicious: "she is hurrying at a great pace to her ruin, surrounded as she is by base flatterers who urge her on for their own interests." Almost at the same moment she was writing to the queen "I am very pleased to learn that you had nothing to do with the change that has been made in the cases of MM.