Position and Prospects.--Court Life at Versailles.--Marie
Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette.--Character of the Duc
d'Aiguillon.--Cabals against the Dauphiness.--Jealousy of Mme. du Barri.--
The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her.--She becomes more and more Popular.--
Parties for Donkey-riding.--Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income.--Her
Influence over the King.--The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed.--She begins
to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.

Marie Antoinette herself was inclined to be delighted with all that befell
her, and to make light of what she could hardly regard as pleasant or
becoming; and two of her first letters to her mother, written in the early
part of July,[1] give us an insight into the feelings with which she
regarded her new family and her own position, as well as a picture of her
daily occupations and of the singular customs of the French court,
strangely inconsistent in what it permitted and in what it disallowed,
and, in the publicity in which its princes lived, curiously incompatible
with ordinary ideas of comfort and even delicacy.

"The king," she says, "is full of kindnesses toward me, and I love him
tenderly. But it is pitiable to see his weakness for Madame du Barri, who
is the silliest and most impertinent creature that it is possible to
conceive. She has played with us every evening at Marly,[2] and she has
twice been seated next to me; but she has not spoken to me, and I have not
attempted to engage in conversation with her; but, when it was necessary,
I have said a word or two to her.

"As for my dear husband, he is greatly changed, and in a most advantageous
manner. He shows a great deal of affection for me, and is even beginning
to treat me with great confidence. He certainly does not like M. de la,
Vauguyon; but he is afraid of him. A curious thing happened about the duke
the other day. I was alone with my husband, when M. de la Vauguyon stole
hurriedly up to the doors to listen. A servant, who was either a fool or a
very honest man, opened the door, and there stood his grace the duke
planted like a sentinel, without being able to retreat. I pointed out to
my husband the inconvenience that there was in having people listening at
the doors, and he took my remark very well."

She did not tell the empress the whole of this occurrence; she had been
too indignant at the duke's meanness to suppress her feelings, and she
reproved the duke himself with a severity which can hardl