ces of the royal family, the secretaries of state, the captains
of the guard, and, on Tuesdays, the foreign ambassadors. According to
their rank, the queen either nodded to them as they entered, or bowed
her head, or leaned with her arm upon her toilet-table, as if about to
rise. This last salutation was only to the royal princes. She never
actually rose, for her hair-dresser was powdering her hair.

It was considered presumptuous and dangerous to alter any customs of the
court of France; but this queen thought fit to alter one among others.
It had always, before her time, been the etiquette for the lady of the
highest rank who appeared in readiness in the queen's chamber, to slip
her majesty's petticoats over her head in dressing; but when her majesty
was pleased to have her head dressed so high that no petticoat would go
over it, but must be slipped up from her feet, she used to step into her
closet, to be dressed by her favourite milliner and one of her women.
This change gave great offence to the ladies who thought they had a
right to the honour of dressing the queen.

Her majesty came forth from her closet ready to go to mass in the
chapel, on certain days: and by this time her chaplains were in waiting
among her suite. The royal princesses and their trains stood waiting to
follow the queen to the chapel: but, strangely enough, this was the hour
appointed for signing deeds of gift on the part of the queen. These
gifts were too often licences for the exclusive sale of articles which
all should have been left free to sell. The secretary of the queen
presented the pen to her majesty; and at these hours she signed away the
goodwill of thousands of well-disposed subjects. At such a moment,
while she stood, beautiful and smiling, among a crowd of adorers, and
while her husband, with smutted face and black hands, was filing his
locks in his attic, how little did either of them think that their
eldest son was sinking to his grave, and that the storm of popular fury
was even now growling within their dominions,--the tremendous storm
which was to prove fatal to themselves!

At this hour of the toilet, on the first day of the month, the queen was
presented with her pocket-money for the month--the sum which she might
do what she liked with, and out of which she made presents. This sum
was always in gold, and was presented in a purse of white kid,
embroidered in silver, and lined with white silk. Its amount was, on an