And it was followed up, as she expected, by several visits to the different Parisian theatres, which, in compliance with the king’s express direction, were made in all the state which would have been observed had he himself been present.  Salutes were fired from the Bastile and the Hotel des Invalides; companies of Royal Guards lined the vestibule and the passage of the theatre; sentinels stood even on the stage; but, fond as the French are of martial finery and parade, the spectators paid little attention to the soldiers, or even to the actors.  All eyes were fixed on the dauphiness alone.  At Mercy’s suggestion, the dauphin and she had previously obtained the king’s permission to allow the violation of the rule which forbade any clapping of hands in the presence of royalty.  This relaxation of etiquette was hailed as a great condescension by the play-goers, and throughout the evening of their appearance at the Italian comedy the spectators had already made abundant use of their new privilege, when the enthusiasm was brought to a height by a chorus which ended with the loyal burden of “Vive le roi!” Clerval, the performer of the principal part, added, “Et ses chers enfants;” and the compliment was re-echoed from every part of the house with continued clapping and cheering, till it reminded Marie Antoinette of a somewhat similar scene which, as a child, she had witnessed in the theatre of Vienna,[4] when the empress, from her box, had announced to the audience that a son (the heir to the empire) had just been born to the Archduke Leopold.

The ice being, thus, as it were, once broken, the dauphin and dauphiness took many opportunities of appearing in public during the following months, visiting the great Paris fair of St. Ovide, as it was called, walking up and down the alleys, and making purchases at the stalls the whole Place Louis xv., to which the fair had recently been removed, being illuminated, and the crowd greeting them with repeated and enthusiastic cheers.  They also went in state to the exhibition of pictures at the Louvre, and drove to St. Cloud to walk about the park attached to that palace, which was one of the most favorite places of resort for the Parisians on the fine summer evenings; so that, while the court was at Versailles, scarcely a week elapsed without her giving them an opportunity of seeing her, in which it was evident that she fully shared their pleasure.  To be loved was with her a necessity of her very nature; and, as she was constantly referring with pride to the attachment felt by the Austrians for her mother, she fixed her own chief wishes on inspiring with a similar feeling those who were to become her and her husband’s subjects.  She was, at least for the time, rewarded as she desired.  This is, indeed, said they, the best of innovations, the best of revolutions,[5] to see the princes mingling with the people, and interesting themselves in their amusements.  This was really to unite all classes; to attach the country to the palace and the palace to the country; and it was to the dauphiness that the credit of this new state of things was universally attributed.