It was remarked that both the ministers and the mistress had become very guarded in their language, and in their behavior to her and her husband.

The Count de Provence took a curious way of showing his expectation of a change, by delivering her a long paper of counsels for her guidance, the chief object of which was to warn her against holding such frequent conversations with Mercy.

She apparently thought that the writer's desire was to remove the embassador from her confidence that he himself might occupy the vacant place, and she showed her opinion of the value of the advice by reading it to Mercy and then putting it into the fire.
Some extracts from the first letter which she wrote to her mother in 1773 will serve to give us a fair idea of her feelings at this time, both from what it does and from what it does not mention.

The intelligence which has reached her about her sister recalls to her mind her own anxiety to become a mother, her disappointment in this matter being, indeed, one of the most constant topics of lamentation in the letters of both daughter and mother, till it was removed by the birth of the princess royal.

But that is her only vexation.