"Madame Campan's delicacy and discretion are not only pardonable, but praiseworthy; but they are disingenuous, and her Memoirs conceal truths well known to her, though such as would have been unbecoming a lady to reveal. She was, in fact, the _confidante_ of Marie Antoinette's amours. These amours were not numerous, scandalous, or degrading, but they _were amours_. Madame Campan, who lived beyond the Restoration, was not so mysterious in conversation on these subjects as she is in her writings. She acknowledged to persons, who have acknowledged it to me, that she was privy to the intercourse between the Queen and the Duc de Coigny." And this is evidence upon which we are to condemn Marie Antoinette! I had it--says this distinct and confident accuser--from other people, who had it from the waiting-woman, although the waiting-woman knew better than to write it down! And who were the people "who acknowledged it to me"--what was their character and station--what was their repute for credibility? Lord Holland durst not in his lifetime have said as much of the father or mother of any man of his acquaintance upon such a pretext for authority. It is altogether the very worst instance of a wanton attack which we ever remember to have met with: it has but one parallel in history--the famous warming-pan legend, by means of which Lord Holland's political predecessors sought to bastardise the son of James II. But the motive which dictated the earlier fiction is wanting in the case of the later one. Let us not be misunderstood. The case stands thus: Lord Holland has made a grievous charge against the honour of the murdered Queen of France. He says that he believes that charge to be true, and he states the grounds of his belief. They are these: A lady, who wrote the memoirs of her mistress's private life, in which no hint of criminal conduct appears, told other persons (who are nameless) who told him, Lord Holland, that the Queen had been guilty of adultery. Far be it from us to doubt the honour of a British peer. But, rather than doubt the honour of Marie Antoinette, we should doubt the fact of Lord Holland having received any such statement from any human being. Who were the indiscreet friends of Madame Campan that conveyed to his ear the hitherto undivulged secret? Were they old menials of the French court--retired waiting-women--confidential lacqueys--or persons who had the _entrée_ to Holland House? Surely, when the honour of a Queen is impeached, we are entitled to know the authority. No authority of any kind is given. On the _ipse dixit_ of Lord Holland rests the entire substantiation of the charge, and on his memory must lie the stigma of having revived the gross and unmanly calumny.