another official royal mistress. After the death of the Queen in 1768, the King was depressed. Members of the court believed that as soon as the King recovered from his depression, the choice would be between either providing him with a new Queen, or a new official royal mistress. Madame Adélaïde, who detested the idea of a new royal mistress, encouraged the solution of her father marrying again to prevent it. She reportedly preferred a Queen who was young, beautiful and lacked ambition, as she could distract her father from state affairs, leaving them to Madame Adélaïde. She supported the Dowager Princess de Lamballe as a suitable candidate for that purpose and was supported in this plan by the powerful Noailles family. However, the Princesse de Lamballe was not willing to encourage the match herself, her former father-in-law, the Duke of Penthièvre, was not willing to consent, and the marriage plan never materialized. The King was then suggested to marry Archduchess Maria Elisabeth of Austria. The archduchess was a famed beauty, but when she suffered from smallpox, which badly scarred her face, marriage negotiations were discontinued. Instead, Louis XV introduced his last official maîtresse-en-titre, Madame du Barry, to court in 1769, whom Madame Adélaïde came to despise. In the last years of their father's reign, Adélaïde and her sisters were described as bitter old hags, who spent their days gossiping and knitting in their rooms. Reportedly, they seldom dressed properly, merely putting on panniers covered by a coat when leaving their rooms. Madame Campan described the sisters and their life in the years around 1770: "Louis XV saw very little of his family. He came every morning by a private staircase into the apartment of Madame Adelaide. He often brought and drank the coffee that he had made himself. Madame Adelaide pulled a bell which apprised Madame Victoire of the King’s visit; Madame Victoire, on rising to go to her sister’s apartment, rang for Madame Sophie, who in her turn rang for Madame Louise. The apartments of Mesdames were immense. Madame Louise occupied the farthest room. This latter lady was deformed and very short; the poor Princess used to run with all her might to join the daily meeting, but, having many rooms to cross, she frequently, despite her haste, had only just time to embrace her father before he set out for the chase. Every evening, at six, Mesdames