At the period of his grandfather’s death, Louis XVI. began to be
exceedingly attached to the Queen. The first period of so deep a mourning
not admitting of indulgence in the diversion of hunting, he proposed to
her walks in the gardens of Choisy; they went out like husband and wife,
the young King giving his arm to the Queen, and accompanied by a very
small suite. The influence of this example had such an effect upon the
courtiers that the next day several couples, who had long, and for good
reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace with the same
apparent conjugal intimacy. Thus they spent whole hours, braving the
intolerable wearisomeness of their protracted tete-a-tetes, out of mere
obsequious imitation.
The devotion of Mesdames to the King their father throughout his dreadful
malady had produced that effect upon their health which was generally
apprehended. On the fourth day after their arrival at Choisy they were
attacked by pains in the head and chest, which left no doubt as to the
danger of their situation. It became necessary instantly to send away the
young royal family; and the Chateau de la Muette, in the Bois de Boulogne,
was selected for their reception. Their arrival at that residence, which
was very near Paris, drew so great a concourse of people into its
neighbourhood, that even at daybreak the crowd had begun to assemble round
the gates. Shouts of “Vive le Roi!” were scarcely interrupted for a
moment between six o’clock in the morning and sunset. The unpopularity the
late King, had drawn upon himself during his latter years, and the hopes
to which a new reign gives birth, occasioned these transports of joy.
A fashionable jeweller made a fortune by the sale of mourning snuff-boxes,
whereon the portrait of the young Queen, in a black frame of shagreen,
gave rise to the pun: “Consolation in chagrin.” All the fashions, and
every article of dress, received names expressing the spirit of the
moment. Symbols of abundance were everywhere represented, and the
head-dresses of the ladies were surrounded by ears of wheat. Poets sang of
the new monarch; all hearts, or rather all heads, in France were filled
with enthusiasm. Never did the commencement of any reign excite more
unanimous testimonials of love and attachment. It must be observed,
however, that, amidst all this intoxication, the anti-Austrian party never
lost sight of the young Queen, but kept on the watch, with the malicious
desire to injure her through such errors as might arise from her youth and
inexperience.
Their Majesties had to receive at La Muette the condolences of the ladies
who had been presented at Court, who all felt themselves called on to pay
homage to the new sovereigns. Old and young hastened to present
themselves on the day of general reception; little black bonnets with
great wings, shaking heads, low curtsies, keeping time with the motions of
the head, made, it must be admitted, a few venerable dowagers appear
somewhat ridiculous; but the Queen, who possessed a great deal of dignity,
and a high respect for decorum, was not guilty of the grave fault of
losing the state she was bound to preserve. An indiscreet piece of
drollery of one of the ladies of the palace, however, procured her the
imputation of doing so. The Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre, whose office
required that she should continue standing behind the Queen, fatigued by
the length of the ceremony, seated herself on the floor, concealed behind
the fence formed by the hoops of the Queen and the ladies of the palace.
Thus seated, and wishing to attract attention and to appear lively, she
twitched the dresses of those ladies, and played a thousand other tricks.
The contrast of these childish pranks with the solemnity which reigned
over the rest of the Queen’s chamber disconcerted her Majesty: she several
times placed her fan before her face to hide an involuntary smile, and the
severe old ladies pronounced that the young Queen had decided all those
respectable persons who were pressing forward to pay their homage to her;
that she liked none but the young; that she was deficient in decorum; and
that not one of them would attend her Court again. The epithet ‘moqueuse’
was applied to her; and there is no epithet less favourably received in
the world.
The next day a very ill-natured song was circulated; the stamp of the
party to which it was attributable might easily be seen upon it. I
remember only the following chorus:
“Little Queen, you must not be
So saucy, with your twenty years;
Your ill-used courtiers soon will see
You pass, once more, the barriers.
Fal lal lal, fal lal la.”
The errors of the great, or those which ill-nature chooses to impute to
them, circulate in the world with the greatest rapidity, and become
historical traditions, which every one delights to repeat.
More than fifteen years after this occurrence I heard some old ladies in
the most retired part of Auvergne relating all the particulars of the day
of public condolence for the late King, on which, as they said, the Queen
had laughed in the faces of the sexagenarian duchesses and princesses who
had thought it their duty to appear on the occasion.
The King and the Princes, his brothers, determined to avail themselves of
the advantages held out by inoculation, as a safeguard against the illness
under which their grandfather had just fallen; but the utility of this new
discovery not being then generally acknowledged in France, many persons
were greatly alarmed at the step; those who blamed it openly threw all the
responsibility of it upon the Queen, who alone, they said, could have
ventured to give such rash advice, inoculation being at this time
established in the Northern Courts. The operation upon the King and his
brothers, performed by Doctor Jauberthou, was fortunately quite
successful.
When the convalescence of the Princes was perfectly established, the
excursions to Marly became cheerful enough. Parties on horseback and in
calashes were formed continually. The Queen was desirous to afford
herself one very innocent gratification; she had never seen the day break;
and having now no other consent than that of the King to seek, she
intimated her wish to him. He agreed that she should go, at three o’clock
in the morning, to the eminences of the gardens of Marly; and,
unfortunately, little disposed to partake in her amusements, he himself
went to bed. Foreseeing some inconveniences possible in this nocturnal
party, the Queen determined on having a number of people with her; and
even ordered her waiting women to accompany her. All precautions were
ineffectual to prevent the effects of calumny, which thenceforward sought
to diminish the general attachment that she had inspired. A few days
afterwards, the most wicked libel that appeared during the earlier years
of her reign was circulated in Paris. The blackest colours were employed
to paint an enjoyment so harmless that there is scarcely a young woman
living in the country who has not endeavoured to procure it for herself.
The verses which appeared on this occasion were entitled “Sunrise.”
The Duc d’Orleans, then Duc de Chartres, was among those who accompanied
the young Queen in her nocturnal ramble: he appeared very attentive to her
at this epoch; but it was the only moment of his life in which there was
any advance towards intimacy between the Queen and himself. The King
disliked the character of the Duc de Chartres, and the Queen always
excluded him from her private society. It is therefore without the
slightest foundation that some writers have attributed to feelings of
jealousy or wounded self-love the hatred which he displayed towards the
Queen during the latter years of their existence.
It was on this first journey to Marly that Boehmer, the jeweller, appeared
at Court,--a man whose stupidity and avarice afterwards fatally affected
the happiness and reputation of Marie Antoinette. This person had, at
great expense, collected six pear-formed diamonds of a prodigious size;
they were perfectly matched and of the finest water. The earrings which
they composed had, before the death of Louis XV., been destined for the
Comtesse du Barry.
Boehmer; by the recommendation of several persons about the Court, came to
offer these jewels to the Queen. He asked four hundred thousand francs
for them. The young Princess could not withstand her wish to purchase
them; and the King having just raised the Queen’s income, which, under the
former reign, had been but two hundred thousand livres, to one hundred
thousand crowns a year, she wished to make the purchase out of her own
purse, and not burthen the royal treasury with the payment. She proposed
to Boehmer to take off the two buttons which formed the tops of the
clusters, as they could be replaced by two of her own diamonds. He
consented, and then reduced the price of the earrings to three hundred and
sixty thousand francs; the payment for which was to be made by
instalments, and was discharged in the course of four or five years by the
Queen’s first femme de chambre, deputed to manage the funds of her privy
purse. I have omitted no details as to the manner in which the Queen
first became possessed of these jewels, deeming them very needful to place
in its true light the too famous circumstance of the necklace, which
happened near the end of her reign.
It was also on this first journey to Marly that the Duchesse de Chartres,
afterwards Duchesse d’Orleans, introduced into the Queen’s household
Mademoiselle Bertin, a milliner who became celebrated at that time for the
total change she effected in the dress of the French ladies.
It may be said that the mere admission of a milliner into the house of the
Queen was followed by evil consequences to her Majesty. The skill of the
milliner, who was received into the household, in spite of the custom
which kept persons of her description out of it, afforded her the
opportunity of introducing some new fashion every day. Up to this time
the Queen had shown very plain taste in dress; she now began to make it a
principal occupation; and she was of course imitated by other women.
All wished instantly to have the same dress as the Queen, and to wear the
feathers and flowers to which her beauty, then in its brilliancy, lent an
indescribable charm. The expenditure of the younger ladies was
necessarily much increased; mothers and husbands murmured at it; some few
giddy women contracted debts; unpleasant domestic scenes occurred; in many
families coldness or quarrels arose; and the general report was,--that the
Queen would be the ruin of all the French ladies.
Fashion continued its fluctuating progress; and head-dresses, with their
superstructures of gauze, flowers, and feathers, became so lofty that the
women could not find carriages high enough to admit them; and they were
often seen either stooping, or holding their heads out of the windows.
Others knelt down in order to manage these elevated objects of ridicule
with less danger.
[If the use of these extravagant feathers and head-dresses had continued,
say the memoirs of that period very seriously, it would have effected a
revolution in architecture. It would have been found necessary to raise
the doors and ceilings of the boxes at the theatre, and particularly the
bodies of carriages. It was not without mortification that the King
observed the Queen’s adoption of this style of dress: she was never so
lovely in his eyes as when unadorned by art. One day Carlin, performing
at Court as harlequin, stuck in his hat, instead of the rabbit’s tail, its
prescribed ornament, a peacock’s feather of excessive length. This new
appendage, which repeatedly got entangled among the scenery, gave him an
opportunity for a great deal of buffoonery. There was some inclination to
punish him; but it was presumed that he had not assumed the feather
without authority.-NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
Innumerable caricatures, exhibited in all directions, and some of which
artfully gave the features of the Queen, attacked the extravagance of
fashion, but with very little effect. It changed only, as is always the
case, through the influence of inconstancy and time.
The Queen’s toilet was a masterpiece of etiquette; everything was done in
a prescribed form. Both the dame d’honneur and the dame d’atours usually
attended and officiated, assisted by the first femme de chambre and two
ordinary women. The dame d’atours put on the petticoat, and handed the
gown to the Queen. The dame d’honneur poured out the water for her hands
and put on her linen. When a princess of the royal family happened to be
present while the Queen was dressing, the dame d’honneur yielded to her
the latter act of office, but still did not yield it directly to the
Princesses of the blood; in such a case the dame d’honneur was accustomed
to present the linen to the first femme de chambre, who, in her turn,
handed it to the Princess of the blood. Each of these ladies observed
these rules scrupulously as affecting her rights. One winter’s day it
happened that the Queen, who was entirely undressed, was just going to put
on her shift; I held it ready unfolded for her; the dame d’honneur came
in, slipped off her gloves, and took it. A scratching was heard at the
door; it was opened, and in came the Duchesse d’Orleans: her gloves were
taken off, and she came forward to take the garment; but as it would have
been wrong in the dame d’honneur to hand it to her she gave it to me, and
I handed it to the Princess. More scratching it was Madame la Comtesse de
Provence; the Duchesse d’Orleans handed her the linen. All this while the
Queen kept her arms crossed upon her bosom, and appeared to feel cold;
Madame observed her uncomfortable situation, and, merely laying down her
handkerchief without taking off her gloves, she put on the linen, and in
doing so knocked the Queen’s cap off. The Queen laughed to conceal her
impatience, but not until she had muttered several times, “How
disagreeable! how tiresome!”
All this etiquette, however inconvenient, was suitable to the royal
dignity, which expects to find servants in all classes of persons,
beginning even with the brothers and sisters of the monarch.
Speaking here of etiquette, I do not allude to majestic state, appointed
for days of ceremony in all Courts. I mean those minute ceremonies that
were pursued towards our Kings in their inmost privacies, in their hours
of pleasure, in those of pain, and even during the most revolting of human
infirmities.
These servile rules were drawn up into a kind of code; they offered to a
Richelieu, a La Rochefoucauld and a Duras, in the exercise of their
domestic functions, opportunities of intimacy useful to their interests;
and their vanity was flattered by customs which converted the right to
give a glass of water, to put on a dress, and to remove a basin, into
honourable prerogatives.
Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities naturally ended by
believing that they were of a distinct nature, of a purer essence than the
rest of mankind.
This sort of etiquette, which led our Princes to be treated in private as
idols, made them in public martyrs to decorum. Marie Antoinette found in
the Chateau of Versailles a multitude of established customs which
appeared to her insupportable.
The ladies-in-waiting, who were all obliged to be sworn, and to wear full
Court dresses, were alone entitled to remain in the room, and to attend in
conjunction with the dame d’honneur and the tirewoman. The Queen
abolished all this formality. When her head was dressed, she curtsied to
all the ladies who were in her chamber, and, followed only by her own
women, went into her closet, where Mademoiselle Bertin, who could not be
admitted into the chamber, used to await her. It was in this inner closet
that she produced her new and numerous dresses. The Queen was also
desirous of being served by the most fashionable hairdresser in Paris.
Now the custom which forbade all persons in inferior offices, employed by
royalty, to exert their talents for the public, was no doubt intended to
cut off all communication between the privacy of princes and society at
large; the latter being always extremely curious respecting the most
trifling particulars relative to the private life of the former. The
Queen, fearing that the taste of the hairdresser would suffer if he should
discontinue the general practice of his art, ordered him to attend as
usual certain ladies of the Court and of Paris; and this multiplied the
opportunities of learning details respecting the household, and very often
of misrepresenting them.
One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every
day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome
practice; Marie Antoinette followed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The
Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public
dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently dressed people to enter;
the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour
there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after
having seen the Dauphiness take her soup, went to see the Princes eat
their ‘bouilli’, and then ran themselves out of breath to behold Mesdames
at their dessert.
Very ancient usage, too, required that the Queens of France should appear
in public surrounded only by women; even at meal-times no persons of the
other sex attended to serve at table; and although the King ate publicly
with the Queen, yet he himself was served by women with everything which
was presented to him directly at table. The dame d’honneur, kneeling, for
her own accommodation, upon a low stool, with a napkin upon her arm, and
four women in full dress, presented the plates to the King and Queen. The
dame d’honneur handed them drink. This service had formerly been the
right of the maids of honour. The Queen, upon her accession to the
throne, abolished the usage altogether. She also freed herself from the
necessity of being followed in the Palace of Versailles by two of her
women in Court dresses, during those hours of the day when the
ladies-in-waiting were not with her. From that time she was accompanied
only by a single valet de chambre and two footmen. All the changes made
by Marie Antoinette were of the same description; a disposition gradually
to substitute the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles was
more injurious to her than she could possibly have imagined.
When the King slept in the Queen’s apartment he always rose before her;
the exact hour was communicated to the head femme de chambre, who entered,
preceded by a servant of the bedchamber bearing a taper; she crossed the
room and unbolted the door which separated the Queen’s apartment from that
of the King. She there found the first valet de chambre for the quarter,
and a servant of the chamber. They entered, opened the bed curtains on
the King’s side, and presented him slippers generally, as well as the
dressing-gown, which he put on, of gold or silver stuff. The first valet
de chambre took down a short sword which was always laid within the
railing on the King’s side. When the King slept with the Queen, this
sword was brought upon the armchair appropriated to the King, and which
was placed near the Queen’s bed, within the gilt railing which surrounded
the bed. The first femme de chambre conducted the King to the door,
bolted it again, and, leaving the Queen’s chamber, did not return until
the hour appointed by her Majesty the evening before. At night the Queen
went to bed before the King; the first femme de chambre remained seated at
the foot of her bed until the arrival of his Majesty, in order, as in the
morning, to see the King’s attendants out and bolt the door after them.
The Queen awoke habitually at eight o’clock, and breakfasted at nine,
frequently in bed, and sometimes after she had risen, at a table placed
opposite her couch.
In order to describe the Queen’s private service intelligibly, it must be
recollected that service of every kind was honour, and had not any other
denomination. To do the honours of the service was to present the service
to a person of superior rank, who happened to arrive at the moment it was
about to be performed. Thus, supposing the Queen asked for a glass of
water, the servant of the chamber handed to the first woman a silver gilt
waiter, upon which were placed a covered goblet and a small decanter; but
should the lady of honour come in, the first woman was obliged to present
the waiter to her, and if Madame or the Comtesse d’Artois came in at the
moment, the waiter went again from the lady of honour into the hands of
the Princess before it reached the Queen. It must be observed, however,
that if a princess of the blood instead of a princess of the family
entered, the service went directly from the first woman to the princess of
the blood, the lady of honour being excused from transferring to any but
princesses of the royal family. Nothing was presented directly to the
Queen; her handkerchief or her gloves were placed upon a long salver of
gold or silver gilt, which was placed as a piece of furniture of ceremony
upon a side-table, and was called a gantiere. The first woman presented
to her in this manner all that she asked for, unless the tirewoman, the
lady of honour, or a princess were present, and then the gradation pointed
out in the instance of the glass of water was always observed.
Whether the Queen breakfasted in bed or up, those entitled to the petites
entrees were equally admitted; this privilege belonged of right to her
chief physician, chief surgeon, physician in ordinary, reader, closet
secretary, the King’s four first valets de chambre and their reversioners,
and the King’s chief physicians and surgeons. There were frequently from
ten to twelve persons at this first entree. The lady of honour or the
superintendent, if present, placed the breakfast equipage upon the bed;
the Princesse de Lamballe frequently performed that office.
As soon as the Queen rose, the wardrobe woman was admitted to take away
the pillows and prepare the bed to be made by some of the valets de
chambre. She undrew the curtains, and the bed was not generally made
until the Queen was gone to mass. Generally, excepting at St. Cloud,
where the Queen bathed in an apartment below her own, a slipper bath was
rolled into her room, and her bathers brought everything that was
necessary for the bath. The Queen bathed in a large gown of English
flannel buttoned down to the bottom; its sleeves throughout, as well as
the collar, were lined with linen. When she came out of the bath the
first woman held up a cloth to conceal her entirely from the sight of her
women, and then threw it over her shoulders. The bathers wrapped her in
it and dried her completely. She then put on a long and wide open
chemise, entirely trimmed with lace, and afterwards a white taffety
bed-gown. The wardrobe woman warmed the bed; the slippers were of dimity,
trimmed with lace. Thus dressed, the Queen went to bed again, and the
bathers and servants of the chamber took away the bathing apparatus. The
Queen, replaced in bed, took a book or her tapestry work. On her bathing
mornings she breakfasted in the bath. The tray was placed on the cover of
the bath. These minute details are given here only to do justice to the
Queen’s scrupulous modesty. Her temperance was equally remarkable; she
breakfasted on coffee or chocolate; at dinner ate nothing but white meat,
drank water only, and supped on broth, a wing of a fowl, and small
biscuits, which she soaked in a glass of water.
The tirewoman had under her order a principal under-tirewoman, charged
with the care and preservation of all the Queen’s dresses; two women to
fold and press such articles as required it; two valets, and a porter of
the wardrobe. The latter brought every morning into the Queen’s
apartments baskets covered with taffety, containing all that she was to
wear during the day, and large cloths of green taffety covering the robes
and the full dresses. The valet of the wardrobe on duty presented every
morning a large book to the first femme de chambre, containing patterns of
the gowns, full dresses, undresses, etc. Every pattern was marked, to
show to which sort it belonged. The first femme de chambre presented this
book to the Queen on her awaking, with a pincushion; her Majesty stuck
pins in those articles which she chose for the day,--one for the dress,
one for the afternoon-undress, and one for the full evening dress for card
or supper parties in the private apartments. The book was then taken back
to the wardrobe, and all that was wanted for the day was soon after
brought in in large taffety wrappers. The wardrobe woman, who had the
care of the linen, in her turn brought in a covered basket containing two
or three chemises and handkerchiefs. The morning basket was called pret
du jour. In the evening she brought in one containing the nightgown and
nightcap, and the stockings for the next morning; this basket was called
pret de la nuit. They were in the department of the lady of honour, the
tirewoman having nothing to do with the linen. Nothing was put in order
or taken care of by the Queen’s women. As soon as the toilet was over,
the valets and porter belonging to the wardrobe were called in, and they
carried all away in a heap, in the taffety wrappers, to the tirewoman’s
wardrobe, where all were folded up again, hung up, examined, and cleaned
with so much regularity and care that even the cast-off clothes scarcely
looked as if they had been worn. The tirewoman’s wardrobe consisted of
three large rooms surrounded with closets, some furnished with drawers and
others with shelves; there were also large tables in each of these rooms,
on which the gowns and dresses were spread out and folded up.
For the winter the Queen had generally twelve full dresses, twelve
undresses called fancy dresses, and twelve rich hoop petticoats for the
card and supper parties in the smaller apartments.
She had as many for the summer; those for the spring served likewise for
the autumn. All these dresses were discarded at the end of each season,
unless, indeed, she retained some that she particularly liked. I am not
speaking of muslin or cambric gowns, or others of the same kind--they were
lately introduced; but such as these were not renewed at each returning
season, they were kept several years. The chief women were charged with
the care and examination of the diamonds; this important duty was formerly
confided to the tirewoman, but for many years had been included in the
business of the first femmes de chambre.
The public toilet took place at noon. The toilet-table was drawn forward
into the middle of the room. This piece of furniture was generally the
richest and most ornamented of all in the apartment of the Princesses. The
Queen used it in the same manner and place for undressing herself in the
evening. She went to bed in corsets trimmed with ribbon, and sleeves
trimmed with lace, and wore a large neck handkerchief. The Queen’s
combing cloth was presented by her first woman if she was alone at the
commencement of the toilet; or, as well as the other articles, by the
ladies of honour if they were come. At noon the women who had been in
attendance four and twenty hours were relieved by two women in full dress;
the first woman went also to dress herself. The grandee entrees were
admitted during the toilet; sofas were placed in circles for the
superintendent, the ladies of honour, and tirewomen, and the governess of
the children of France when she came there; the duties of the ladies of
the bedchamber, having nothing to do with any kind of domestic or private
functions, did not begin until the hour of going out to mass; they waited
in the great closet, and entered when the toilet was over. The Princes of
the blood, captains of the Guards, and all great officers having the entry
paid their court at the hour of the toilet. The Queen saluted by nodding
her head or bending her body, or leaning upon her toilet-table as if
moving to rise; the last mode of salutation was for the Princes of the
blood. The King’s brothers also came very generally to pay their respects
to her Majesty while her hair was being dressed. In the earlier years of
the reign the first part of the dressing was performed in the bedchamber
and according to the laws of etiquette; that is to say, the lady of honour
put on the chemise and poured out the water for the hands, the tirewoman
put on the skirt of the gown or full dress, adjusted the handkerchief, and
tied on the necklace. But when the young Queen became more seriously
devoted to fashion, and the head-dress attained so extravagant a height
that it became necessary to put on the chemise from below,--when, in
short, she determined to have her milliner, Mademoiselle Benin, with her
whilst she was dressing, whom the ladies would have refused to admit to
any share in the honour of attending on the Queen, the dressing in the
bedchamber was discontinued, and the Queen, leaving her toilet, withdrew
into her closet to dress.
On returning into her chamber, the Queen, standing about the middle of it,
surrounded by the superintendent, the ladies of honour and tirewomen, her
ladies of the palace, the chevalier d’honneur, the chief equerry, her
clergy ready to attend her to mass, and the Princesses of the royal family
who happened to come, accompanied by all their chief attendants and
ladies, passed in order into the gallery as in going to mass. The Queen’s
signatures were generally given at the moment of entry into the chamber.
The secretary for orders presented the pen. Presentations of colonels on
taking leave were usually made at this time. Those of ladies, and, such
as had a right to the tabouret, or sitting in the royal presence, were
made on Sunday evenings before card-playing began, on their coming in from
paying their respects. Ambassadors were introduced to the Queen on
Tuesday mornings, accompanied by the introducer of ambassadors on duty,
and by M. de Sequeville, the secretary for the ambassadors. The
introducer in waiting usually came to the Queen at her toilet to apprise
her of the presentations of foreigners which would be made. The usher of
the chamber, stationed at the entrance, opened the folding doors to none
but the Princes and Princesses of the royal family, and announced them
aloud. Quitting his post, he came forward to name to the lady of honour
the persons who came to be presented, or who came to take leave; that lady
again named them to the Queen at the moment they saluted her; if she and
the tirewoman were absent, the first woman took the place and did that
duty. The ladies of the bedchamber, chosen solely as companions for the
Queen, had no domestic duties to fulfil, however opinion might dignify
such offices. The King’s letter in appointing them, among other
instructions of etiquette, ran thus: “having chosen you to bear the Queen
company.” There were hardly any emoluments accruing from this place.
The Queen heard mass with the King in the tribune, facing the grand altar
and the choir, with the exception of the days of high ceremony, when their
chairs were placed below upon velvet carpets fringed with gold. These days
were marked by the name of grand chapel day.
The Queen named the collector beforehand, and informed her of it through
her lady of honour, who was besides desired to send the purse to her. The
collectors were almost always chosen from among those who had been
recently presented. After returning from mass the Queen dined every
Sunday with the King only, in public in the cabinet of the nobility, a
room leading to her chamber. Titled ladies having the honours sat during
the dinner upon folding-chairs placed on each side of the table. Ladies
without titles stood round the table; the captain of the Guards and the
first gentleman of the chamber were behind the King’s chair; behind that
of the Queen were her first maitre d’hotel, her chevalier d’honneur, and
the chief equerry. The Queen’s maitre d’hotel was furnished with a large
staff, six or seven feet in length, ornamented with golden fleurs-de-lis,
and surmounted by fleurs-de-lis in the form of a crown. He entered the
room with this badge of his office to announce that the Queen was served.
The comptroller put into his hands the card of the dinner; in the absence
of the maitre d’hotel he presented it to the Queen himself, otherwise he
only did him the honours of the service. The maitre d’hotel did not leave
his place, he merely gave the orders for serving up and removing; the
comptroller and gentlemen serving placed the various dishes upon the
table, receiving them from the inferior servants.
The Prince nearest to the crown presented water to wash the King’s hands
at the moment he placed himself at table, and a princess did the same
service to the Queen.
The table service was formerly performed for the Queen by the lady of
honour and four women in full dress; this part of the women’s service was
transferred to them on the suppression of the office of maids of honour.
The Queen put an end to this etiquette in the first year of her reign.
When the dinner was over the Queen returned without the King to her
apartment with her women, and took off her hoop and train.
This unfortunate Princess, against whom the opinions of the French people
were at length so much excited, possessed qualities which deserved to
obtain the greatest popularity. None could doubt this who, like myself,
had heard her with delight describe the patriarchal manners of the House
of Lorraine. She was accustomed to say that, by transplanting their
manners into Austria, the Princes of that house had laid the foundation of
the unassailable popularity enjoyed by the imperial family. She
frequently related to me the interesting manner in which the Ducs de
Lorraine levied the taxes. “The sovereign Prince,” said she, “went to
church; after the sermon he rose, waved his hat in the air, to show that
he was about to speak, and then mentioned the sum whereof he stood in
need. Such was the zeal of the good Lorrainers that men have been known
to take away linen or household utensils without the knowledge of their
wives, and sell them to add the value to their contribution. It sometimes
happened, too, that the Prince received more money than he had asked for,
in which case he restored the surplus.”
All who were acquainted with the Queen’s private qualities knew that she
equally deserved attachment and esteem. Kind and patient to excess in her
relations with her household, she indulgently considered all around her,
and interested herself in their fortunes and in their pleasures., She had,
among her women, young girls from the Maison de St. Cyr, all well born;
the Queen forbade them the play when the performances were not suitable;
sometimes, when old plays were to be represented, if she found she could
not with certainty trust to her memory, she would take the trouble to read
them in the morning, to enable her to decide whether the girls should or
should not go to see them,--rightly considering herself bound to watch
over their morals and conduct.