From this time the closest intimacy subsisted between the three young families.  They took their meals together, except on those days when they dined in public.  This manner of living en famille continued until the Queen sometimes indulged herself in going to dine with the Duchesse de Polignac, when she was governess; but the evening meetings at supper were never interrupted; they took place at the house of the Comtesse de Provence.  Madame Elisabeth made one of the party when she had finished her education, and sometimes Mesdames, the King’s aunts, were invited.  The custom, which had no precedent at Court, was the work of Marie Antoinette, and she maintained it with the utmost perseverance.

The Court of Versailles saw no change in point of etiquette during the reign of Louis xv.  Play took place at the house of the Dauphiness, as being the first lady of the State.  It had, from the death of Queen Maria Leczinska to the marriage of the Dauphin, been held at the abode of Madame Adelade.  This removal, the result of an order of precedence not to be violated, was not the less displeasing to Madame Adelaide, who established a separate party for play in her apartments, and scarcely ever went to that which not only the Court in general, but also the royal family, were expected to attend.  The full-dress visits to the King on his ‘debotter’ were continued.  High mass was attended daily.  The airings of the Princesses were nothing more than rapid races in berlins, during which they were accompanied by Body Guards, equerries, and pages on horseback.  They galloped for some leagues from Versailles.  Calashes were used only in hunting.

The young Princesses were desirous to infuse animation into their circle of associates by something useful as well as pleasant.  They adopted the plan of learning and performing all the best plays of the French theatre.  The Dauphin was the only spectator.  The three Princesses, the two brothers of the King, and Messieurs Campan, father and son, were the sole performers, but they endeavoured to keep this amusement as secret as an affair of State; they dreaded the censure of Mesdames, and they had no doubt that Louis xv. would forbid such pastimes if he knew of them.  They selected for their performance a cabinet in the entresol which nobody had occasion to enter.

A kind of proscenium, which could be taken down and shut up in a closet, formed the whole theatre.  The Comte de Provence always knew his part with imperturbable accuracy; the Comte d’Artois knew his tolerably well, and recited elegantly; the Princesses acted badly.  The Dauphiness acquitted herself in some characters with discrimination and feeling.  The chief pleasure of this amusement consisted in all the costumes being elegant and accurate.  The Dauphin entered into the spirit of these diversions, and laughed heartily at the comic characters as they came on the scene; from these amusements may be dated his discontinuance of the timid manner of his youth, and his taking pleasure in the society of the Dauphiness.