before the death of the late king, Louis and Marie Antoinette had relieved it by a munificent gift from their private purse; and to lay additional burdens on the people at such a time was not only repugnant to their feelings, but seemed especially inconsistent with their recent generosity. Accordingly, the very first edict of the new reign announced that neither tax would be imposed. The people felt the kindness which dictated such a relief more than even the relief itself, and repaid it with expressions of gratitude such as no French sovereign had heard for above a century; but Marie Antoinette, with the humility natural to her on such subjects, made light of her own share in the act of benevolence, turning off the compliments which were paid to her with a playful jest, that it was impossible for a queen to affix a purse to her girdle, now that girdles had gone out of fashion.[13] On another subject, also, not wholly unconnected with politics, Since the nobleman concerned had once been the chief minister, but in which Marie Antoinette's interest was personal, she broke through her usual rule of not beginning the discussion with the king, and requested the recall from banishment of the Due de Choiseul. An unfounded prejudice based upon calumnies set on foot by the cabal of Madame du Barri, had envenomed Louis's mind against the duke. He bad been led to suspect that his own father, the late dauphin, had been poisoned, and that Choiseul had been accessory to the crime. There was nothing more certain than that the dauphin's death had been natural; but a dislike of the accused duke lingered in the king's mind, and he eluded compliance with his wife's request till she put it on entirely personal grounds, by declaring it to be humiliating to herself that one to whom she was under the deepest obligations as the negotiator of her own happy marriage should be under the king's displeasure without her being able to procure his pardon. Louis felt the force of the appeal thus made to him. "If she used that argument, he could deny her nothing," and the duke's sentence was remitted, though his royal patroness was unable to procure his re-admission to office. Nor did Maria Teresa regret that she failed in that object; since she feared his restless character, and felt the alliance between the two countries safer in the hands of the new foreign secretary, the Count de Vergennes. CHAPTER IX.