While doing justice to the virtues of the Comtesse de Noailles, those sincerely attached to the Queen have always considered it as one of her earliest misfortunes not to have found, in the person of her adviser, a woman indulgent, enlightened, and administering good advice with that amiability which disposes young persons to follow it.  The Comtesse de Noailles had nothing agreeable in her appearance; her demeanour was stiff and her mien severe.  She was perfect mistress of etiquette; but she wearied the young Princess with it, without making her sensible of its importance.  It would have been sufficient to represent to the Dauphiness that in France her dignity depended much upon customs not necessary at Vienna to secure the respect and love of the good and submissive Austrians for the imperial family; but the Dauphiness was perpetually tormented by the remonstrances of the Comtesse de Noailles, and at the same time was led by the Abbe de Vermond to ridicule both the lessons upon etiquette and her who gave them.  She preferred raillery to argument, and nicknamed the Comtesse de Noailles Madame l’Etiquette.

The fetes which were given at Versailles on the marriage of the Dauphin were very splendid.  The Dauphiness arrived there at the hour for her toilet, having slept at La Muette, where Louis xv. had been to receive her; and where that Prince, blinded by a feeling unworthy of a sovereign and the father of a family, caused the young Princess, the royal family, and the ladies of the Court, to sit down to supper with Madame du Barry.

The Dauphiness was hurt at this conduct; she spoke of it openly enough to those with whom she was intimate, but she knew how to conceal her dissatisfaction in public, and her behaviour showed no signs of it.

She was received at Versailles in an apartment on the ground floor, under that of the late Queen, which was not ready for her until six months after her marriage.

The Dauphiness, then fifteen years of age, beaming with freshness, appeared to all eyes more than beautiful.  Her walk partook at once of the dignity of the Princesses of her house, and of the grace of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile amiable.  When she went to chapel, as soon as she had taken the first few steps in the long gallery, she discerned, all the way to its extremity, those persons whom she ought to salute with the consideration due to their rank; those on whom she should bestow an inclination of the head; and lastly, those who were to be satisfied with a smile, calculated to console them for not being entitled to greater honours.

Louis xv. was enchanted with the young Dauphiness; all his conversation was about her graces, her vivacity, and the aptness of her repartees.  She was yet more successful with the royal family when they beheld her shorn of the splendour of the diamonds with which she had been adorned during the first days of her marriage.  When clothed in a light dress of gauze or taffety she was compared to the Venus dei Medici, and the Atalanta of the Marly Gardens.  Poets sang her charms; painters attempted to copy her features.  One artist’s fancy led him to place the portrait of Marie Antoinette in the heart of a full-blown rose.  His ingenious idea was rewarded by Louis xv.