Marie Antoinette of Austria, his wife, was of very different mould; and in her everything made for unpopularity. She had begun under the worst auspices. The French public detested the Austrian alliance into which Madame de Pompadour had dragged France, and had felt the smart of national disgrace during the Seven Years' War, so that a marriage into the Hapsburg-Lorraine family after the conclusion of that war, was very ill received. To make the matter worse a catastrophe marked the wedding ceremonies, and at a great {37} illumination given by the city of Paris, a stampede occurred, in which hundreds of lives were lost. The Austrian princess, _l'Autrichienne_, as she was called from the first, did not mend matters by her conduct. Until misfortune sobered her and brought out her stronger and better side, she was incurably light-headed and frivolous. She was always on the very edge of a _faux pas_, and her enemies did not fail to accuse her of frequent slips beyond the edge. The titled riffraff that had adorned the Louis XV-du Barry court was swept out on the accession of the young Queen, but only to be replaced by a new clique as greedy as the old, and not vastly more edifying. Richelieu and d'Aiguillon only made way for Lauzun, the Polignacs, and Vaudreuil. And if it was an improvement to have a high-born queen rule Versailles instead of a low-born courtesan, the difference was not great in the matter of outward dignity, and especially of the expenditure of public money. Millions that cannot be computed for lack of proper accounts were poured out for the Queen's amusements and for the Queen's favourites, men and women. It was the Controleur whose function was to fill the Court's bottomless purse. Under this strain and that of the American war, a man of {38} humble origin but of good repute as an economist and accountant was called to the office, the Geneva banker, Jacques Necker. For three years he attempted to carry the burden of the war by small economies effected at many points, which produced the minimum of result with the maximum of friction. Finally, in 1781, the Queen drove him from office. Necker himself provided the excuse by the publication of his _Compte rendu_, a pamphlet which first put the financial crisis fairly before the public.