f
the Dauphin, Madame Royale, and the Duke de Normandie, I busied myself
with my picture, to which I attached great importance, and I had it
ready for the Salon of 1788. The frame, which had been taken there
alone, was enough to evoke a thousand malicious remarks. "That's how
the money goes," they said, and a number of other things which seemed
to me the bitterest comments. At last I sent my picture, but I could
not muster up the courage to follow it and find out what its fate was
to be, so afraid was I that it would be badly received by the public.
In fact, I became quite ill with fright. I shut myself in my room, and
there I was, praying to the Lord for the success of my "Royal Family,"
when my brother and a host of friends burst in to tell me that my
picture had met with universal acclaim. After the Salon, the King,
having had the picture transferred to Versailles, M. d'Angevilliers,
then minister of the fine arts and director of royal residences,
presented me to His Majesty. Louis XVI. vouchsafed to talk to me at
some length and to tell me that he was very much pleased. Then he
added, still looking at my work, "I know nothing about painting, but
you make me like it."

The picture was placed in one of the rooms at Versailles, and the
Queen passed it going to mass and returning. After the death of the
Dauphin, which occurred early in the year 1789, the sight of this
picture reminded her so keenly of the cruel loss she had suffered that
she could not go through the room without shedding tears. She then
ordered M. d'Angevilliers to have the picture taken away, but with her
usual consideration she informed me of the fact as well, apprising me
of her motive for the removal. It is really to the Queen's
sensitiveness that I owed the preservation of my picture, for the
fishwives who soon afterward came to Versailles for Their Majesties
would certainly have destroyed it, as they did the Queen's bed, which
was ruthlessly torn apart.

I never had the felicity of setting eyes on Marie Antoinette after the
last court ball at Versailles. The ball was given in the theatre, and
the box where I was seated was so situated that I could hear what the
Queen said. I observed that she was very excited, asking the young men
of the court to dance with her, such as M. Lameth, whose family had
been overwhelmed with kindness by the Queen, and others, who all
refused, so that many of the dances had to be given up. The conduct of
these gentlem