down and among the crowd,
diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie
Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting
all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial
as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the
entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he
recorded, not for any unusual sumptuousness of the spectacle, but as
having been the occasion on which she made one more inroad on the
established etiquette of the court in one of its most unaccountable
restrictions: to such royal parties the king's ministers had never been
regarded as admissible, but on this night Marie Antoinette commanded the
company of the Count and Countess de Maurepas. And the innovation was
regarded not only by them as a singular favor, but by all their colleagues
as a marked compliment to the whole body of ministers, and served to
increase their desire to consult her inclinations in every matter in which
she took an interest.

And the esteem which she thus conciliated was at this time not destitute
of real importance, since the conduct of the other members of the royal
family excited very different feelings. The Count de Provence was
generally distrusted as intriguing and insincere. And the Count d'Artois,
whose bad qualities were of a more conspicuous character, was becoming an
object of general dislike, not so much from his dissipated mode of life as
from the overbearing arrogance which he imparted into his pleasures. No
rank was high enough to protect the objects of his displeasure from his
insolence; even ladies were not safe from it;[2] while his extravagance
was beyond all bounds since he considered himself entitled to claim from,
the national treasury whatever he might require in addition to his stated
income. He was at the same time repairing one castle, that of St. Germain,
which the king had given him; rebuilding another large house which he had
purchased in the same neighborhood; and pulling down and rebuilding a
third, named Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, which he had just bought,
and as to which he had laid an enormous wager that it should be completed
and furnished in sixty days. To win his bet nearly a thousand workmen were
employed day and night, and, as the requisite materials could not be
provided at so short a notice, he sent patrols of his regiment to scour
the roads, and seize every cart loaded wit