The Court leaves Versailles for La Muette.--Feelings of the New
Sovereigns.--Madame du Barri is sent to a Convent.--Marie Antoinette
writes to Maria Teresa.--The Good Intentions of the New Sovereigns.--
Madame Adelaide has the Small-pox.--Anxieties of Maria Teresa.--
Mischievous Influence of the Aunts.--Position and Influence of the Count
de Mercy.--Louis consults the Queen on Matters of Policy.--Her Prudence.--
She begins to Purify the Court, and to relax the Rules of Etiquette.--Her
Care of her Pages.--The King and the renounce the Gifts of Le Joyeux
Avénement and La Ceinture de la Reine.---She procures the Pardon of the
Due de Choiseul.


Throughout the morning of the 10th of May there was great confusion and
agitation at Versailles. The physicians declared that the king could not
live out the day; and the dauphin had decided on removing his household to
the smaller palace of La Muette at Choisy, to spend in that comparative
retirement the first week or two after his grandfather's death, during
which it would hardly be decorous for the royal family to be seen in
public. But, as it was not thought seemly to appear to anticipate the
event by quitting Versailles while Louis was still alive, a lighted candle
was placed in the window of the sick-room, which, the moment that the king
had expired, was to be extinguished, as a signal to the equerries to
prepare the carriages. The dauphin and dauphiness were in an adjoining
room awaiting the intelligence, when, at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, a sudden trampling of feet was heard, and Madame de Noailles
entered the apartment to entreat them to advance into the saloon to
receive the homage of the princes and principal officers of the court, who
were waiting to pay their respects to their new sovereigns. They came
forward arm-in-arm; and in tears, in which sincere sorrow was mingled with
not unnatural nervousness, received the salutations of the courtiers, and