The Prince nearest to the crown presented water to wash the King’s hands at the moment he placed himself at table, and a princess did the same service to the Queen.

The table service was formerly performed for the Queen by the lady of honour and four women in full dress; this part of the women’s service was transferred to them on the suppression of the office of maids of honour.  The Queen put an end to this etiquette in the first year of her reign.  When the dinner was over the Queen returned without the King to her apartment with her women, and took off her hoop and train.

This unfortunate Princess, against whom the opinions of the French people were at length so much excited, possessed qualities which deserved to obtain the greatest popularity.  None could doubt this who, like myself, had heard her with delight describe the patriarchal manners of the House of Lorraine.  She was accustomed to say that, by transplanting their manners into Austria, the Princes of that house had laid the foundation of the unassailable popularity enjoyed by the imperial family.  She frequently related to me the interesting manner in which the Ducs de Lorraine levied the taxes.  “The sovereign Prince,” said she, “went to church; after the sermon he rose, waved his hat in the air, to show that he was about to speak, and then mentioned the sum whereof he stood in need.  Such was the zeal of the good Lorrainers that men have been known to take away linen or household utensils without the knowledge of their wives, and sell them to add the value to their contribution.  It sometimes happened, too, that the Prince received more money than he had asked for, in which case he restored the surplus.”

All who were acquainted with the Queen’s private qualities knew that she equally deserved attachment and esteem.  Kind and patient to excess in her relations with her household, she indulgently considered all around her, and interested herself in their fortunes and in their pleasures., She had, among her women, young girls from the Maison de St. Cyr, all well born; the Queen forbade them the play when the performances were not suitable; sometimes, when old plays were to be represented, if she found she could not with certainty trust to her memory, she would take the trouble to read them in the morning, to enable her to decide whether the girls should or should not go to see them,—­rightly considering herself bound to watch over their morals and conduct.

CHAPTER VI.

During the first few months of his reign Louis XVI. dwelt at La Muette, Marly, and Compiegne.  When settled at Versailles he occupied himself with a general examination of his grandfather’s papers.  He had promised the Queen to communicate to her all that he might discover relative to the history of the man with the iron mask, who, he thought, had become so inexhaustible a source of conjecture only in consequence of the interest which the pen of a celebrated writer had excited respecting the detention of a prisoner of State, who was merely a man of whimsical tastes and habits.