s of men's
dress; in the introduction of top-boots; and, very wholesomely, in the
adoption of a country life by many of the great nobles, in imitation of
the English gentry; so that, for the first time since the coronation of
Louis XIV., the great territorial lords began to spend a considerable part
of the year on their estates, and no longer to think the interests and
requirements of their tenants and dependents beneath their notice.

The winter of 1779 and the spring of 1780 passed very happily. If
Versailles, from the reasons mentioned above, was not as crowded as in
former years, it was very lively. The season was unusually mild; the
hunting was scarcely ever interrupted, and Marie Antoinette, who now made
it a rule to accompany her husband on every possible occasion, sometimes
did not return from the hunt till the night was far advanced, and found
her health much benefited by the habit of spending the greater part of
even a winter's day in the open air. Her garden, too, which daily occupied
more and more of her attention, as it increased in beauty, had the same
tendency; and her anxiety to profit by the experience of others on one
occasion inflicted a whimsical disappointment of the free-thinkers of the
court. The profligate and sentimental infidel Rousseau had died a couple
of years before, and had been buried at Ermenonville, in the park of the
Count de Girardin. In the course of the summer the queen drove over to
Ermenonville, and the admirers of the versatile writer flattered
themselves that her object was to pay a visit of homage to the shrine of
their idol; but they wore greatly mortified to find that, though his tomb
was pointed out to her, she took no further notice of it than such as
consisted of a passing remark that it was very neat, and very prettily
placed; and that what had attracted her curiosity was the English garden
which the count had recently laid out at a great expense, and from which
she had been led to expect that she might derive some hints for the
further improvement of her own Little Trianon.

She had not yet entirely given up her desire for novelty in her
amusements; and she began now to establish private theatricals at
Versailles, choosing light comedies interspersed with song, and with but
few characters, the male parts being filled by the Count d'Artois and some
of the most distinguished officers of the household, while she herself
took one of the female parts; the spectators being con