She was soon spoken of at Court.  Some ladies of high rank, who took an interest in the welfare of her family, obtained for her the place of Reader to the Princesses.  Her presentation, and the circumstances which preceded it, left a strong impression on her mind.  “I was then fifteen,” she says; “my father felt some regret at yielding me up at so early an age to the jealousies of the Court.  The day on which I first put on my Court dress, and went to embrace him in his study, tears filled his eyes, and mingled with the expression of his pleasure.  I possessed some agreeable talents, in addition to the instruction which it had been his delight to bestow on me.  He enumerated all my little accomplishments, to convince me of the vexations they would not fail to draw upon me.”

Mademoiselle Genet, at fifteen, was naturally less of a philosopher than her father was at forty.  Her eyes were dazzled by the splendour which glittered at Versailles.  “The Queen, Maria Leczinska, the wife of Louis xv., died,” she says, “just before I was presented at Court.  The grand apartments hung with black, the great chairs of state, raised on several steps, and surmounted by a canopy adorned with Plumes; the caparisoned horses, the immense retinue in Court mourning, the enormous shoulder-knots, embroidered with gold and silver spangles, which decorated the coats of the pages and footmen,—­all this magnificence had such an effect on my senses that I could scarcely support myself when introduced to the Princesses.  The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed.  How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns!  Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which she is reproached.”

When once her awe and confusion had subsided, Mademoiselle Genet was enabled to form a more accurate judgment of her situation.  It was by no means attractive; the Court of the Princesses, far removed from the revels to which Louie xv. was addicted, was grave, methodical, and dull.  Madame Adelaide, the eldest of the Princesses, lived secluded in the interior of her apartments; Madame Sophie was haughty; Madame Louise a devotee.  Mademoiselle Genet never quitted the Princesses’ apartments; but she attached herself most particularly to Madame Victoire.  This Princess had possessed beauty; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, and her conversation was kind, free, and unaffected.  The young reader excited in her that feeling which a woman in years, of an affectionate disposition, readily extends to young people who are growing up in her sight, and who possess some useful talents.  Whole days were passed in reading to the Princess, as she sat at work in her apartment.  Mademoiselle Genet frequently saw there Louis xv., of whom she has related the following anecdote: