and fascinating young bride, whose amiableness, vivacity, and wit became the universal admiration, and whose graceful manner of address few ever equalled and none ever surpassed; nay, even so to have prevailed as to form one of the great sources of his aversion to consummate the marriage!  Since the death of the late Queen, their mother, these four Princesses (who, it was said, if old maids, were not so from choice) had received and performed the exclusive honours of the Court.  It could not have diminished their dislike for the young and lovely new-comer to see themselves under the necessity of abandoning their dignities and giving up their station.  So eager were they to contrive themes of complaint against her, that when she visited them in the simple attire in which she so much delighted, ‘sans ceremonie’, unaccompanied by a troop of horse and a squadron of footguards, they complained to their father, who hinted to Marie Antoinette that such a relaxation of the royal dignity would be attended with considerable injury to French manufactures, to trade, and to the respect due to her rank.  ‘My State and Court dresses,’ replied she, ’shall not be less brilliant than those of any former Dauphine or Queen of France, if such be the pleasure of the King,—­but to my grandpapa I appeal for some indulgence with respect to my undress private costume of the morning.

“It was dangerous for one in whose conduct so many prying eyes were seeking for sources of accusation to gratify herself even by the overthrow of an absurdity, when that overthrow might incur the stigma of innovation.  The Court of Versailles was jealous of its Spanish inquisitorial etiquette.  It had been strictly wedded to its pageantries since the time of the great Anne of Austria.  The sagacious and prudent provisions of this illustrious contriver were deemed the ne plus ultra of royal female policy.  A cargo of whalebone was yearly obtained by her to construct such stays for the Maids of Honour as might adequately conceal the Court accidents which generally—­poor ladies!—­befell them in rotation every nine months.

“But Marie Antoinette could not sacrifice her predilection for a simplicity quite English, to prudential considerations.  Indeed, she was too young to conceive it even desirable.  So much did she delight in being unshackled by finery that she would hurry from Court to fling off her royal robes and ornaments, exclaiming, when freed from them, ’Thank Heaven, I am out of harness!’

“But she had natural advantages, which gave her enemies a pretext for ascribing this antipathy to the established fashion to mere vanity.  It is not impossible that she might have derived some pleasure from displaying a figure so beautiful, with no adornment except its native gracefulness; but how great must have been the chagrin of the Princesses, of many of the Court ladies, indeed, of all in any way ungainly or deformed, when called to exhibit themselves by the side of a bewitching person like hers, unaided