One historian said that Gabrielle, in her portraits by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (see Self-portrait in a Straw Hat), generally looks "like some harvested and luscious fruit.

The cost of maintaining oneself at the court of Versailles was ruinous, and Gabrielle replied that her husband did not have the money to finance a permanent move to the palace.

In a letter to the Queen's mother, Empress Maria Theresa, the ambassador wrote, "It is almost unexampled that in so short a time, the royal favour should have brought such overwhelming advantages to a family.

Ultimately, the Queen's favouritism towards the Polignac family was one of the many causes which fueled Marie Antoinette's unpopularity with some of her husband's subjects (especially Parisians) and members of the politically liberal nobility.

Although there was no evidence to back up these accusations,[19][20][21] they did immeasurable damage to the prestige of the monarchy, especially given the deep-rooted suspicion of homosexuality held by the bourgeoisie and urban working-classes at the time.

[23] Others have contended that to some extent she deserved her negative reputation because, despite the inaccuracies of the claims that she was sexually disreputable, other criticisms of her were valid: she was cold, self-centred, self-indulgent, and masked a love of gossip and intrigue behind a sweet-toned voice and flawless manners.

This argument was particularly championed by the author and biographer Stefan Zweig, who wrote: "Not even Madame de Maintenon, not even the Pompadour, cost as much as this favourite, this angel, with downcast eyes, this modest and gentle Polignac.

Those who were not themselves swept into the whirlpool, stood at the marge contemplating it with astonishment ... [as] the Queen's hand was invisibly guided by the violet-eyed, the lovely, the gentle Polignac.

Gabrielle was even given her own cottage in Marie Antoinette's favorite pastoral refuge, the Hameau de la Reine, built in the 1780s on the grounds of the Petit Trianon in the park of Versailles.

[29] Despite the claims that they were lovers, Gabrielle showed no hesitation in distancing herself from Vaudreuil whenever she felt her own social position was threatened by the Queen's dislike of the manipulative courtier.

The marquis de Bombelles, a diplomat and politician, remembered Gabrielle's ceaseless work to promote hardline responses against the emergent revolution.

Together with the baron de Breteuil, Bombelles' godfather and former diplomat, and the comte d'Artois, Gabrielle persuaded Marie Antoinette to work against the King's popular minister of finances, Jacques Necker.

On Louis XVI's express orders, the comte d'Artois left, as did Breteuil; Gabrielle went with her family to Switzerland, where she kept in contact with the Queen through letters.

The Polignac family travelled through Switzerland, Turin, Rome and Venice (where she attended the wedding of her son in March 1790), and from Italy to Vienna in Austria in 1791.

She was reportedly present in the Austrian Netherlands during the Flight to Varennes, and in July 1791, she is noted as one of the extravagantly dressed women who attended the émigrée court of the count of Provence in Koblenz.

No specific mention of her disease was made in the various allegorical pamphlets which showed the Angel of Death descending to take the soul of the still-beautiful duchesse de Polignac.

For example: Her critics among historians have argued that the Duchesse de Polignac typified the aristocratic hangers-on at the court of Versailles before the French Revolution and that she embodied the exclusivity, the obliviousness, and the selfish extravagance of the ruling class.

[citation needed] Assessments of her character aside, it is generally agreed that she was one of the key figures in the ultra-monarchist movement throughout the early summer of 1789, acting under the influence of her friend, the Comte d'Artois.