CHAPTER IX
THE TWILIGHT OF THE BOURBON KINGS
It was on a May morning in the year 1770 that the child-bride of the
Dauphin of France arrived at Versailles--the graceful, winsome,
golden-haired Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Empress of
Austria. The future Queen of France was then not fifteen years of age,
and her affianced husband was but a few months older.
A letter in her own hand, dated at Versailles on the 24th of May, 1770,
describes the incidents of her ceremonious journey from Austria, and her
reception by Louis XV and his heir. Other letters to her family give us
glimpses of the wedding in the chapel of Versailles, of the fetes, the
balls at the palace, the function of distributing bread and wine to the
people, the hunts in nearby forests, the dances, musicales and informal
assemblages of the royal family in the intimate apartments of the chateau.
"Our life here is perpetual movement," wrote the Dauphine to her sister;
and to her mother she sent this quaint epistle a few weeks after her
arrival in France: "You wish to know how I spend my time habitually. I
will say, therefore, that I rise at ten o'clock or nine, or half-past
nine, and after dressing I say my prayers; then I breakfast, after which
I go to my aunts' (Madame Adelaide, Victoire and Sophie), where I usually
meet the King. At eleven I go to have my hair dressed. At noon the
Chambre is called, and any one of sufficient rank may come in.
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