s done in
a prescribed form. Both the dame d'honneur and the dame d'atours usually
attended and officiated, assisted by the first femme de chambre and two
ordinary women. The dame d'atours put on the petticoat, and handed the
gown to the Queen. The dame d'honneur poured out the water for her hands
and put on her linen. When a princess of the royal family happened to be
present while the Queen was dressing, the dame d'honneur yielded to her
the latter act of office, but still did not yield it directly to the
Princesses of the blood; in such a case the dame d'honneur was accustomed
to present the linen to the first femme de chambre, who, in her turn,
handed it to the Princess of the blood. Each of these ladies observed
these rules scrupulously as affecting her rights. One winter's day it
happened that the Queen, who was entirely undressed, was just going to put
on her shift; I held it ready unfolded for her; the dame d'honneur came
in, slipped off her gloves, and took it. A scratching was heard at the
door; it was opened, and in came the Duchesse d'Orleans: her gloves were
taken off, and she came forward to take the garment; but as it would have
been wrong in the dame d'honneur to hand it to her she gave it to me, and
I handed it to the Princess. More scratching it was Madame la Comtesse de
Provence; the Duchesse d'Orleans handed her the linen. All this while the
Queen kept her arms crossed upon her bosom, and appeared to feel cold;
Madame observed her uncomfortable situation, and, merely laying down her
handkerchief without taking off her gloves, she put on the linen, and in
doing so knocked the Queen's cap off. The Queen laughed to conceal her
impatience, but not until she had muttered several times, "How
disagreeable! how tiresome!"

All this etiquette, however inconvenient, was suitable to the royal
dignity, which expects to find servants in all classes of persons,
beginning even with the brothers and sisters of the monarch.

Speaking here of etiquette, I do not allude to majestic state, appointed
for days of ceremony in all Courts. I mean those minute ceremonies that
were pursued towards our Kings in their inmost privacies, in their hours
of pleasure, in those of pain, and even during the most revolting of human
infirmities.

These servile rules were drawn up into a kind of code; they offered to a
Richelieu, a La Rochefoucauld and a Duras, in the exercise of their
domestic functions, opportunities of in