had not been consulted in the matter; for she was naturally anxious to see
the beautiful city of which she had heard so much; and the delay which had
taken place was equally at variance with Madame de Noailles' notions of
propriety. But when the countess suggested a plan for visiting the capital
_incognito_, proposing that the dauphiness should drive as far as the
entrance to the suburbs, and then, having sent on her saddle-horses,
should ride along the boulevards, Madame Adelaide, professing a desire to
join the party, raised so many difficulties on the subject of the retinue
which was to follow, and was so successful in creating jealousies between
her own ladies and those in attendance on Marie Antoinette, that Madame de
Noailles was forced to recommend the abandonment of the project. Mercy was
far more annoyed than his young mistress; he saw that the secret object of
Madame Adelaide was to throw as many hindrance as possible in the way of
the dauphiness winning popularity by appearing in public, while he also
correctly judged hat it would be consistent both with propriety and with
her interest, as the future queen of the country, rather to seek and even
make opportunities for enabling the people to become acquainted with her.
But to Marie Antoinette any disappointment of that kind was a very
trifling matter. She had vexations which, as she told the embassador, she
could not explain even to him; and they kept alive in her a feeling of
homesickness which, in all persons of amiable and affectionate
disposition, must require some, time to subdue. Even when her brother, the
Archduke Ferdinand, had quit Vienna in the preceding autumn to enter on
the honorable post of Governor of Lombardy, she had not congratulated, but
condoled with him, "feeling by her own experience how much it costs to be
separated from one's family." And what she had found in her own home did
not as yet make up to her for all she had left behind. Even her husband,
though uniformly kind in language and behavior, was of a singularly cold
and undemonstrative disposition; and it almost seemed as if the gayety
which he exhibited at her balls were an effort so foreign to his nature