The Emperor and Empress received her in their Peterhof palace with the utmost consideration. Appointed at once a lady-in-waiting on the Empress, she found herself in enjoyment of many privileges attached to this post. The house in which she was to live had been prepared for her specially by the Emperor’s command. Finally, she was decorated with the Order of St. Catherine, and the Empress on her _fête_ day presented her with her portrait. Different indeed is her position from what it had been at Richmond. “I never drive out without four horses, and even this is my own doing, for I ought not, as a lady-in-waiting, to have less than six. They tell me I shall be obliged to get myself made the uniform of the Order of St. Catherine, and that would cost me 1200 roubles, that is, 150 louis.” But the very marked favour met with by the Princess could not but disquiet some of the courtiers at the Palace. Within a week of her arrival, one of the ladies in attendance upon the Empress, Mme. de Nelidoff, at the instigation of Prince Alexandre Kourakine, hastened to represent Mme. de Tarente’s conduct and the unusual honour that had been shown her under the most unfavourable light to her Majesty the Empress; and her jealousy thus aroused (so one of Mme. de Tarente’s friends tells the tale), she had no difficulty in settling matters with her husband, and when the Princess next entered the imperial presence, the Emperor neither spoke to her nor looked at her. The snub was patent, but the Princess seems to have taken it nonchalantly enough. The friendly welcome accorded to her by St. Petersburg society, the kindness and affection she met with from the Golowine family, in whose house she soon installed herself, there to remain until her death, enabled her speedily to forget the intrigue of her enemies at the Court. The incident is barely alluded to in her letters to Lady Atkyns, which continue to be taken up chiefly with reminiscences of their beloved Queen. Towards the end of 1798 the two friends are sundered by Lady Atkyns’ decision to return to France, impelled by the desire to be near those who had played so important a _rôle_ in her life, and to meet again those friends who had co-operated in her work--perhaps also to meet and question those who might be in a position to enlighten her regarding the fate of the Dauphin. This decision she communicates to the Princess, who opposes it strongly, warning her against the imprudence she is about to commit. Lady Atkyns persists, and the Princess at last loses patience. “I have so often combated your mad idea,” she writes nobly, “that I don’t wish to say anything more on the subject.”