Indeed, many of the amusements Louis not only approved, but shared with
her, while she associated herself with those in which he delighted, as far
as she could, joining his hunting parties twice a week, either on
horseback or in her carriage, and at all times exhibiting a pattern of
domestic union of which the whole previous history of the nation afforded
no similar example. The citizens of Paris could hardly believe their eyes
when they saw their king and queen walk arm-in-arm along the boulevards;
and the courtiers received a lesson, if they had been disposed to profit
by it, when on each Sunday morning they saw the royal pair repair to the
parish church for divine service, the day being closed by their public
supper in the queen's apartment.

And this appearance of domestic felicity was augmented by the introduction
of what may be called private parties, with which, at the queen's
instigation, Louis consented to vary the cold formality of the ordinary
entertainments of the court. In the autumn they followed the example of
Louis XV. by exchanging for a few weeks the grandeur of Versailles for the
comparative quiet of some of their smaller palaces; and, while they were
at Choisy, they issued invitations once or twice a week to several of the
Parisian ladies to come out and spend the day at the palace, when, as the
principal officers of the household were not on duty, they themselves did
the honors to their guests, the queen conversing with every one with her
habitual graciousness, while the king also threw off his ordinary reserve,
and seemed to enter into the pleasures of the day with a gayety and
cordiality which surprised the party, and which, from the contrast that it
presented to his manner when he was by himself, was very generally
attributed to the influence of the queen's example.

And these quiet festivities were so much to his taste that afterward, when
the court moved to Fontainebleau, and when they settled at Versailles for