objects, and more so mischievous to herself. He especially praised the
unaffected dignity with which she had received the mistress who had
attended in her apartments to pay her court, though in no respect deceived
as to the lady's disposition, her penetration into the characters of all
with whom she had been brought into contact, denoting, as it struck him,
"a sagacity" which, at her age, was "truly astonishing.[10]"




CHAPTER IV.


Marie Antoinette gives her Mother her First Impressions of the Court and
of her own Position and Prospects.--Court Life at Versailles.--Marie
Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette.--Character of the Duc
d'Aiguillon.--Cabals against the Dauphiness.--Jealousy of Mme. du Barri.--
The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her.--She becomes more and more Popular.--
Parties for Donkey-riding.--Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income.--Her
Influence over the King.--The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed.--She begins
to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.


Marie Antoinette herself was inclined to be delighted with all that befell
her, and to make light of what she could hardly regard as pleasant or
becoming; and two of her first letters to her mother, written in the early
part of July,[1] give us an insight into the feelings with which she
regarded her new family and her own position, as well as a picture of her
daily occupations and of the singular customs of the French court,
strangely inconsistent in what it permitted and in what it disallowed,