“Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
        D’ voir augmenter vot’ famille,
     Le bon Dieu z’y pourvoira: 
        Faits-en taut qu’ Versailles en fourmille;
     Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
        Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous.”

[Footnote:  Madaine ile Carapan, “Histoire de Marie Antoinette,” vol. i., p. 218.]

In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days; there, the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished from her the empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and ceremonial; there, she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency, in its naturalness; such was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to realize in Trianon.

A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw hat with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen and of the princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited.  For the only etiquette which prevailed at Trianon was this:  that no one from the court, even princes or princesses, should come to Trianon without having received an invitation from the queen to that effect.  Even the king submitted to this ceremonial, and had expressly promised his consort never to come to Trianon without an invitation, and, so as to please the queen, no sooner did she announce her intention of retiring to her country-residence, than he was always the first who hastened to obtain the favor of an invitation.

In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette ceased to be queen.  There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady of the castle; the Count d’Artois was the miller, and the learned Count de Provence, the schoolmaster.  For each of them had been erected in the gardens of Trianon a separate house suited to their respective avocations.

The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a balcony of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls attached to the house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of Switzerland; behind the house was a small garden in which the variegated convolvulus and the daisy shed their fragrance.

The Count d’Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the park, his miller’s house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden spokes joined together, and which moved lustily in the water, and adorned the clear brook with wavelets of foam.

The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree, his house, with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole court-society were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took their seats on the benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de Provence, in a long coat with lead buttons and with an immense rod in his hand, ascended the cathedra and delivered to his school-children a humorous and piquant lecture, all sparkling with wit.