ies of appearing in public during the following
months, visiting the great Paris fair of St. Ovide, as it was called,
walking up and down the alleys, and making purchases at the stalls the
whole Place Louis XV., to which the fair had recently been removed, being
illuminated, and the crowd greeting them with repeated and enthusiastic
cheers. They also went in state to the exhibition of pictures at the
Louvre, and drove to St. Cloud to walk about the park attached to that
palace, which was one of the most favorite places of resort for the
Parisians on the fine summer evenings; so that, while the court was at
Versailles, scarcely a week elapsed without her giving them an opportunity
of seeing her, in which it was evident that she fully shared their
pleasure. To be loved was with her a necessity of her very nature; and, as
she was constantly referring with pride to the attachment felt by the
Austrians for her mother, she fixed her own chief wishes on inspiring with
a similar feeling those who were to become her and her husband's subjects.
She was, at least for the time, rewarded as she desired. This is, indeed,
said they, the best of innovations, the best of revolutions,[5] to see the
princes mingling with the people, and interesting themselves in their
amusements. This was really to unite all classes; to attach the country to
the palace and the palace to the country; and it was to the dauphiness
that the credit of this new state of things was universally attributed.

She was looking forward to a greater pleasure in a visit from her.
brother, the emperor, which the empress hoped might be attended with
consequences more important than those of passing pleasure; since she
trusted to his influence, and, if opportunity should occur, to his
remonstrances, to induce the dauphin to break through the unaccountable
coldness with which, in some respects, he still treated his beautiful
wife. But Joseph was forced to postpone his visit, and the fulfillment of
the empress's anticipations was also postponed for some years.

However, Marie Antoinette never allowed disappointments to dwell in her
mind longer than she could help. She rather strove to dispel the
recollection of them by such amusements as were within her reach. She
learned to drive, and found great diversion in being her own charioteer
through the glades of the forest. She began to make further inroads in the
court etiquette, giving balls in which she broke through the custom