“Our life here is perpetual movement,” wrote the Dauphine to her sister; and to her mother she sent this quaint epistle a few weeks after her arrival in France:  “You wish to know how I spend my time habitually.  I will say, therefore, that I rise at ten o’clock or nine, or half-past nine, and after dressing I say my prayers; then I breakfast, after which I go to my aunts’ (Madame Adelaide, Victoire and Sophie), where I usually meet the King.  At eleven I go to have my hair dressed.  At noon the Chambre is called, and any one of sufficient rank may come in.  I put on my rouge and wash my hands before everybody; then the gentlemen go out; the ladies stay, and I dress before them.  At twelve is mass; when the King is at Versailles I go to mass with him and my husband and my aunts.  After mass we dine together before everybody, but it is over by half-past one, as we both eat quickly. (Marie Antoinette always found the custom of eating in public most distasteful.) I then go to Monsieur the Dauphin; if he is busy I return to my own apartments, where I read, I write, or I work, for I am embroidering a vest for the King, which does not get on quickly, but I trust that, with God’s help, it will be finished in a few years!  At three I go to my aunts’, where the King usually comes at that time.  At four the Abbe (her literary mentor) comes to me; at five the master for the harpsichord, or the singing-master, till six.  At half-past six I generally go to my aunts’ when I do not go out.  You must know that my husband almost always comes with me to my aunts’.  At seven, card-playing till nine.  When the weather is fine I go out; then the card-playing takes place in my aunts’ apartments instead of mine.  At nine, supper; when the King is absent my aunts come to take supper with us; if the King is there, we go to them after supper, and we wait for the King, who comes usually at a quarter before eleven; but I lie on a large sofa and sleep till his arrival; when he is not expected we go to bed at eleven.  Such is my day.

“I entreat you, my very dear mother, to, forgive me if my letter is too long.  I ask pardon also for the blotted letter, but I have had to write two days running at my toilet, having no other time at my disposal.”

In the winter the Court made merry with sleighing, skating and dancing parties, and formal affairs in honor of foreign princes.  “There is too much etiquette here to live the family life,” lamented the child to her mother.  “Altogether, the Court at Versailles is a little dull, the formalities are so fatiguing.  But I am happy, for Monsieur the Dauphin is very polite to me and always attentive.”  In another letter she recounted the triumph attending the first presentation of the opera Iphigenie, by Gluck.  “The Dauphin applauded everything and Gluck showed himself very well pleased. . . .  He has written me some pieces that I sing to the harpsichord.”

Several times a week, the awkward, bashful boy who was to become Louis XVI of France pleased his light-hearted wife by taking dancing lessons with her.  Hours were spent with him in the park at Versailles, skipping about, laughing, playing pranks like the little girl she was.  Sometimes there were charades, and plays by amateurs and professionals behind the “closed doors” of their own rooms.