usehold, 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
was presented to him directly at table. The dame d'honneur, kneeling, for
her own accommodation, upon a low stool, with a napkin upon her arm, and
four women in full dress, presented the plates to the King and Queen. The
dame d'honneur handed them drink. This service had formerly been the
right of the maids of honour. The Queen, upon her accession to the
throne, abolished the usage altogether. She also freed herself from the
necessity of being followed in the Palace of Versailles by two of her
women in Court dresses, during those hours of the day when the
ladies-in-waiting were not with her. From that time she was accompanied
only by a single valet de chambre and two footmen. All the changes made
by Marie Antoinette were of the same description; a disposition gradually
to substitute the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles was
more injurious to her than she could possibly have imagined.

When the King slept in the Queen's apartment he always rose before her;
the exact hour was communicated to the head femme de chambre, who entered,
preceded by a servant of the bedchamber bearing a taper; she crossed the
room and unbolted the door which separated the Queen's apartment from that
of the King. She there found the first valet de chambre for the quarter,
and a servant of the chamber. They entered, opened the bed curtains on
the King's side, and presented him slippers generally, as well as the
dressing-gown, wh