Meanwhile, my faithful Pierrette did not forget me. And one day a
wonderful thing happened to her. She told me all about it afterwards.
It was Easter Monday. Pierrette was sitting before the curé's door,
working and singing, when she saw a gorgeous carriage, drawn by six
horses, coming through the avenue. It rolled right up to the curé's
house, and then stopped. Pierrette now saw that the carriage was empty.
As she was gazing with all her eyes, the equerry, taking off his hat
with great politeness, begged her to enter the vehicle.
Pierrette had too much good sense to make any needless fuss. She simply
slipped off her sabots, put on her shoes with the silver buckles, folded
her work, and, assisted by the footman's arm, stepped into the carriage
as if to the manner born.
Soon she found herself at Trianon, where she was conducted through
gilded apartments into the Queen's presence. With the Queen was Madame
de Lamballe, seated in an embrasure of a window, before an easel.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Queen, gaily, "here she is!" And she ran up to
Pierrette, and took both her hands in her own. "How pretty she is!" she
went on; "what a dear little model she will be for you! Sit there, my
child."
With these words, Marie Antoinette gently pushed the bewildered
Pierrette into a very high chair, where she sat with her pretty feet
dangling.
[Illustration: "SHE SAW A GORGEOUS CARRIAGE."]
"Now listen to me, little one," continued the Queen. "Two gentlemen will
shortly be coming here. Whether you do or do not recognise one of them
is no matter, but whatever they tell you, that you must do. You will
have to sing; I know that you _can_ sing. Whenever they tell you to
enter or to depart, to go or to come, you will obey them exactly. Do you
understand me? All this will be for your good. This lady and I will help
the gentlemen to teach you, and all that we ask in return for our pains
is that, for one hour every day, you will sit for madame. You will not
consider that any great hardship?"
Pierrette was so much more than satisfied with the bargain that she
could have embraced the Queen in the exuberance of her gratitude.
As she was posing for Madame de Lamballe two men entered the room. One
was stout, the other tall. At sight of the tall one she exclaimed: "Why!
it is----" then stopped herself.
"Well, gentlemen," said Marie Antoinette, "what do you think of her? Was
I not right?"
"It is _Rose_ herself!" replied Sedaine.
"A single note, madame," said the other, M. Grévey, "and I shall know if
she be as perfectly Monsigny's _Rose_ as she is Sedaine's."