Cours la Reine, elated with joy, brilliantly
decorated, and eager to witness the rejoicings of the whole people, fled,
struck with consternation and drowned in tears, from the dreadful scene.
This tragic opening of the young Princess's life in France seemed to bear
out Gassner's hint of disaster, and to be ominous of the terrible future
which awaited her.

In the same year in which Marie Antoinette was married to the Dauphin,
Henriette Genet married a son of M. Campan, already mentioned as holding
an office at the Court; and when the household of the Dauphiness was
formed, Madame Campan was appointed her reader, and received from Marie
Antoinette a consistent kindness and confidence to which by her loyal
service she was fully entitled. Madame Campan's intelligence and
vivacity made her much more sympathetic to a young princess, gay and
affectionate in disposition, and reared in the simplicity of a German
Court, than her lady of honour, the Comtesse de Noailles. This
respectable lady, who was placed near her as a minister of the laws of
etiquette, instead of alleviating their weight, rendered their yoke
intolerable to her.

"Madame de Noailles," says Madame Campan, "abounded in virtues. Her
piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of praise;
but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at the slightest
derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought the
principles of life would forsake her frame.

"One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The
Queen was receiving I know not whom,--some persons just presented, I
believe; the lady of honour, the Queen's tirewoman, and the ladies of the
bedchamber, were behind the Queen. I was near the throne, with the two
women on duty. All was right,--at least I thought so. Suddenly I
perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign
with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead,
lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with her
hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was
not as it should be; and as I looked about on all sides to find out what
it was, the agitation of the Countess kept increasing. The Queen, who
perceived all this, looked at me with a smile; I found means to approach
her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper, 'Let down your lappets, or the
Countess will expire.' All this bustle arose from two unlu