ed at court. The benevolent king, Louis XVI, was
then reigning. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was the head of a social
life that was elaborately formal and splendid. Marie Antoinette
herself was young and light-hearted, and was at this time without
fears from misadventure at the hands of the state or from any personal
enemies. The king had thousands of servants and attendants in his
military and personal households. A court scene was a display of knots
of ribbon, lace ruffles, yellow and pink and sky-blue satin coats,
shoes with glittering buckles, red-painted heels, and jeweled
trimmings. Fountains threw their spray aloft, and thousands of candles
flung radiance broadcast. Said Chateaubriand, "No one has seen
anything who has not seen the pomp of Versailles." And no one dreamed
that the end was nearing, or realized that no nation can live when
the great mass of the people are made to toil, suffer, and die, in
order that a favored few may have luxuries and amusement.

Into this Vanity Fair the young Marquis de Lafayette was now plunged. The
grand world flowed to the feet of the Marquis and Marchioness de Lafayette.
More than that, the queen at once took the tall, distinguished-looking
young chevalier into the circle of her special friends. The circle included
some who were to follow Lafayette in his adventure to the New World in aid
of American independence, and some who were to follow in another long
procession equally adventurous and as likely to be fatal--the Revolution
in their own country. During the Terror some of them, including their
beautiful and well-meaning queen, were to lose their lives. Of any such
danger as this, these young nobles, in the present state of seemingly
joyous and abundant prosperity, were farthest from dreaming.

On the whole, however, court life did not have much charm for
Lafayette. It was a part of the duty of the Marquis and Marchioness de
Lafayette to take part in the plays and merrymakings that centered
about a queen who loved amusement only too well. But Lafayette could
not throw his whole heart into the frivolity of the social sphere in
which he was now moving. There were features of life at court that he
could not tolerate. His knee would not crook; he already knew, as
Everett said, that he was not born "to loiter in an antechamber."

It was liberty itself--the revolt against tyranny in every realm of
life--that interested him from the first. Lafayette was against
whatever stood fo