ion which she held with the ambassador on the subject showed that
these remonstrances, re-enforced as they were by the undeniable fact of
the thinness of the company at the palace, had made an impression on her
mind; though such impressions were as yet too apt to be fleeting, and too
liable to be overborne by fresh temptations; for in volatile impulsiveness
she resembled the French themselves, and the good resolutions she made one
day were always liable to be forgotten the next. Nothing as yet was steady
and unalterable in her character but her kindness of heart and
graciousness of manner; they never changed; and it was on her genuine
goodness of disposition and righteousness of intention that her German
friends relied for producing an amendment as she grew older, far more than
on any regrets for the past, or intentions of improvement for the future,
which might be wrung from her by any momentary reflection or vexation.

If Versailles was less lively than usual, Paris, on the other hand, had
never been so gay as during the carnival of 1777. The queen went to
several of the masked balls at the opera with one or other of her
brothers-in-law and their wives; the king expressing his perfect
willingness that she should so amuse herself, but never being able to
overcome his own indolence and shyness so far as to accompany her. It
could not have been a very lively amusement. She did not dance, but sat in
an arm-chair surveying the dancers, or walked down the saloon attended by
an officer of the bodyguard and one lady in waiting, both masked like
herself. Occasionally she would grant to some noble of high rank the honor
of walking at her side; but it was remarked that those whom she thus
distinguished were often foreigners; some English noblemen, such as the
Duke of Dorset and Lord Strathavon being especially favored, for a reason
which, as given by Mercy, shows that that insular stiffness which, with
national self-complacency, Britons sometimes confess as a not unbecoming
characteristic, was not at that time attributed to them by others; since
the ambassador explains the queen's preference by the self-evident fact
that the English gentlemen were the best dancers, and made the best figure
in the ball-room.

But all the other festivities of this winter were thrown into the shade by
an entertainment of extraordinary magnificence, which was given in the
queen's honor by the Count de Provence at his villa at Brunoy.[3] The
count wa