timacy useful to their interests;
and their vanity was flattered by customs which converted the right to
give a glass of water, to put on a dress, and to remove a basin, into
honourable prerogatives.

Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities naturally ended by
believing that they were of a distinct nature, of a purer essence than the
rest of mankind.

This sort of etiquette, which led our Princes to be treated in private as
idols, made them in public martyrs to decorum. Marie Antoinette found in
the Chateau of Versailles a multitude of established customs which
appeared to her insupportable.

The ladies-in-waiting, who were all obliged to be sworn, and to wear full
Court dresses, were alone entitled to remain in the room, and to attend in
conjunction with the dame d'honneur and the tirewoman. The Queen
abolished all this formality. When her head was dressed, she curtsied to
all the ladies who were in her chamber, and, followed only by her own
women, went into her closet, where Mademoiselle Bertin, who could not be
admitted into the chamber, used to await her. It was in this inner closet
that she produced her new and numerous dresses. The Queen was also
desirous of being served by the most fashionable hairdresser in Paris.
Now the custom which forbade all persons in inferior offices, employed by
royalty, to exert their talents for the public, was no doubt intended to
cut off all communication between the privacy of princes and society at
large; the latter being always extremely curious respecting the most
trifling particulars relative to the private life of the former. The
Queen, fearing that the taste of the hairdresser would suffer if he should
discontinue the general practice of his art, ordered him to attend as
usual certain ladies of the Court and of Paris; and this multiplied the
opportunities of learning details respecting the household, and very often
of misrepresenting them.

One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every
day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome
practice; Marie Antoinette followed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The
Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public
dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently dressed people to enter;
the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour
there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after
having seen the Da