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Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. Being secret memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, lady's maid to Madame de Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe — Volume 3 by Mme. Du Hausset
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element was etiquette, but the etiquette of ages before the flood. She
had her rules even for the width of petticoats, that the Queens and
Princesses might have no temptation to straddle over a rivulet, or
crossing, of unroyal size.

"The Queen of Louis XV. having been totally subservient in her movements
night and day to the wishes of the Comtesse de Noailles, it will be
readily conceived how great a shock this lady must have sustained on
being informed one morning that the Dauphine had actually risen in the
night, and her ladyship not by to witness a ceremony from which most
ladies would have felt no little pleasure in being spared, but which, on
this occasion, admitted of no delay! Notwithstanding the Dauphine
excused herself by the assurance of the urgency allowing no time to call
the Countess, she nearly fainted at not having been present at that,
which others sometimes faint at, if too near! This unaccustomed
watchfulness so annoyed Marie Antoinette, that, determined to laugh her
out of it, she ordered an immense bottle of hartshorn to be placed upon
her toilet. Being asked what use was to be made of the hartshorn, she
said it was to prevent her first Lady of Honour from falling into
hysterics when the calls of nature were uncivil enough to exclude her
from being of the party. This, as may be presumed, had its desired
effect, and Marie Antoinette was ever afterwards allowed free access at
least to one of her apartments, and leave to perform that in private
which few individuals except Princesses do with parade and publicity.

"These things, however, planted the seeds of rancour against Marie
Antoinette, which Madame de Noailles carried with her to the grave. It
will be seen that she declared against her at a crisis of great
importance. The laughable title of Madame Etiquette, which the Dauphine
gave her, clung to her through life; though conferred only in merriment,
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