Whatever may have been the motive which gave rise to it, certain it is that they never omitted any opportunity of persecuting each other. The queen had no difficulty in pourtraying the duke as a man addicted to the most profligate excesses, and in alienating from him the mind of the king: he, on his side, found it as easy, by means of surreptitious publications, to represent her as a woman given to illicit enjoyments; so that, long before the revolution, the character both of the queen and the duke were well known to the public; and their example tended not a little to increase the general dissoluteness of morals. The debaucheries of the one served as a model to all the young rakes of fashion; while the levity of the other, was imitated by what were termed the _amiable_ women of the capital.
After his exile in 1788, the hatred of M. d'Orléans towards the queen roused that ambition which he inherited from his ancestors. In watching her private conduct, in order to expose her criminal weaknesses, he discovered a certain political project, which gave birth to the idea of his forming a plan of a widely-different nature. Hitherto he had given himself little trouble about State affairs; but, in conjunction with his confidential friends, he now began to calculate the means of profiting by the distress of his country.
The first shocks of the revolution had so electrified the greater part of the Parisians, that, in regard to the Duke of Orleans, they imperceptibly passed from profound contempt to blind infatuation. His palace became the rendezvous of all the malcontents of the court, and his garden the place of assembly of all the demagogues. His exile appeared a public calamity, and his recall was celebrated as a triumph. Had he possessed a vigour of intellect, and a daring equal to the situation of leader of a party, there is little doubt that he might have succeeded in his plan, and been declared regent. His immense income, amounting to upwards of three hundred thousand pounds sterling, was employed to gain partisans, and secure the attachment of the people.
After the taking of the Bastille, it is admitted that his party was sufficiently powerful to effect a revolution in his favour; but his pusillanimity prevailed over his ambition. The active vigilance of the queen thwarting his projects, he resolved to get rid of her; and in that intention was the irruption of the populace directed to Versailles. This fact seems proved: for, on some one complaining before him in 1792, that the revolution proceeded too slowly. "It would have been terminated long ago," replied he, "had the queen been sacrificed on the 5th of October 1789."