In twenty-four hours the price of the loaf was reduced by two-fifths, and Mercy had the satisfaction of hearing the relief generally attributed to the influence of the new queen.
It can not he supposed that the king knew either the opinion which the empress and the embassador had formed of his capacity and disposition, or the advice which they had consequently given to the queen.

But he very early began to show that he himself also appreciated his wife's quickness of intelligence and correctness of judgment.

Maria Teresa, in pressing on her daughter her opinion of the general character of the policy which the interest of France required, explained her view of her daughter's position to be that she was "the friend and confidante of the king.[8]" And June had hardly arrived before he began to discuss all his plans and difficulties with her; while she spared his pride and won his further confidence by avoiding all appearances of pressing for it, as if her advice were necessary to him, but at the same time showing with what satisfaction she received it.

To those who solicited her intervention, her language was most carefully guarded.

"She did not," she said, "interfere in any affair of state; she only coincided in all the wishes and intentions of the king." There were, however, matters which were strictly and exclusively within her own province; and in them she at once began to exert her authority most beneficially.