ck
with the dancing as I expected. For beauty I saw none, or the queen
effaced all the rest. After the minuets were French country-dances, much
incumbered by the long trains, longer tresses, and hoops. In the intervals
of dancing, baskets of peaches, china oranges (a little out of season),
biscuits, ices, and wine-and-water were presented to the royal family and
dancers. The ball lasted just two hours. The monarch did not dance, but
for the first two rounds of the minuet even the queen does not turn her
back to him. Yet her behavior is as easy as divine."

Such was a French court ball on days of most special ceremony, a somewhat
solemn affair, which required graciousness such as that of Marie
Antoinette to make admission to every one a very enviable privilege; even
though its stiffness had been in some degree relieved by a new regulation
of the queen, that the invitations, which had hitherto been confined to
matrons, should be extended to unmarried girls. Scarcely any change
produced greater consternation among the admirers of old customs. The
dowagers searched all the registers of those who had been admitted to the
court balls since the beginning of the century to fortify their
objections. But, to their dismay, some of the early festivities in the
time of Marie Leczinska proved to have been shared by one or two noble
maidens. The discovery was of little importance, since Marie Antoinette
had shown that she was not afraid of making precedents. But still it in
some degree silenced the grumblers, and for the rest of the reign no one
contested the queen's right to decide who should, and who should not, be
admitted to her society.

CHAPTER XI.

Tea is introduced.--Horse-racing of Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette goes
to see it--The Queen's Submissiveness to the Reproofs of the Empress.--
Birth of the Duc d'Angouleme.--She at times speaks lightly of the King.--
The Emperor remonstrates with her.--Character of some of the Queen's
Friends.--The Princess de Lamballe.--The Countess Jules de Polignac.--
They set the Queen against Turgot.--She procures his Dismissal.--She
gratifies Madame Polignac's Friends.--Her Regard for the French People.--
Water Parties on the Seine.--Her Health is Delicate.--Gambling at the
Palace.

Nor were these the only innovations which marked the age. A rage for
adopting English fashions--_Anglomanie_, as it was called--began to
prevail; and, among the different modes in which it exhibited