"And if she should happen to forget it," answered the Princess de
Chimay, "we shall have to stand here the whole day, while the queen
in Trianon is amusing herself with the fantastic pastoral plays."

"Yes, certainly, there is a country festival in Trianon to-day,"
said the Prince de Castines, shrugging his shoulders, "and it might
easily happen that we should be forgotten, and, like the
unforgetable wife of Lot, have to stand here playing the ridiculous
part of pillars of salt."

"No, there comes our deliverance," whispered the Marchioness de
Mailly, pointing to a carriage which just then came rolling across
the broad palace-square. "It was yesterday resolved in secret
council at the Count de Provence's, that Madame Adelaide should make
one more attempt to bring the queen to reason, and make her
understand what is becoming and what is unbecoming to a Queen of
France. Now look you, in accordance with this resolve, Madame
Adelaide is coming to Versailles to pay a visit to her distinguished
niece."

Just then the carriage of the Princess Adelaide, daughter of Louis
the Fifteenth, and aunt of Louis the Sixteenth, drove through the
great gate into the guarded vestibule of the palace; two outriders
rode in advance, two lackeys stood on the stand behind the carriage,
and upon the step on each side, a page in richly-embroidered
garments.

Before the middle portal, which could only be used by the royal
family, and which had never been desecrated by the entrance of one
who was "lowly-born," the carriage came to a standstill. The lackeys