women, went into her closet, where Mademoiselle Bertin, who could not be
admitted into the chamber, used to await her. It was in this inner closet
that she produced her new and numerous dresses. The Queen was also
desirous of being served by the most fashionable hairdresser in Paris.
Now the custom which forbade all persons in inferior offices, employed by
royalty, to exert their talents for the public, was no doubt intended to
cut off all communication between the privacy of princes and society at
large; the latter being always extremely curious respecting the most
trifling particulars relative to the private life of the former. The
Queen, fearing that the taste of the hairdresser would suffer if he should
discontinue the general practice of his art, ordered him to attend as
usual certain ladies of the Court and of Paris; and this multiplied the
opportunities of learning details respecting the household, and very often
of misrepresenting them.

One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every
day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome
practice; Marie Antoinette followed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The
Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public
dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently dressed people to enter;
the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour
there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after
having seen the Dauphiness take her soup, went to see the Princes eat
their 'bouilli', and then ran themselves out of breath to behold Mesdames
at their dessert.

Very ancient usage, too, required that the Queens of France should appear
in public surrounded only by women; even at meal-times no persons of the
other sex attended to serve at table; and although the King ate publicly
with the Queen, yet he himself was served by women with everything which