ad
probably been run in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick had
naturally occurred at the same point in each, since the candles had all
gone out in the order in which they had been lighted.

The deputies of the Tiers Etat arrived at Versailles full of the strongest
prejudices against the Court. They believed that the King indulged in the
pleasures of the table to a shameful excess; and that the Queen was
draining the treasury of the State in order to satisfy the most unbridled
luxury. They almost all determined to see Petit Trianon. The extreme
plainness of the retreat in question not answering the ideas they had
formed, some of them insisted upon seeing the very smallest closets,
saying that the richly furnished apartments were concealed from them. They
particularised one which, according to them, was ornamented with diamonds,
and with wreathed columns studded with sapphires and rubies. The Queen
could not get these foolish ideas out of her mind, and spoke to the King
on the subject. From the description given of this room by the deputies
to the keepers of Trianon, the King concluded that they were looking for
the scene enriched with paste ornaments, made in the reign of Louis XV.
for the theatre of Fontainebleau.

The King supposed that his Body Guards, on their return to the country,
after their quarterly duty at Court, related what they had seen, and that
their exaggerated accounts, being repeated, became at last totally
perverted. This idea of the King, after the search for the diamond
chamber, suggested to the Queen that the report of the King's propensity
for drinking also sprang from the guards who accompanied his carriage when
he hunted at Rambouillet. The King, who disliked sleeping out of his
usual bed, was accustomed to leave that hunting-seat after supper; he
generally slept soundly in his carriage, and awoke only on his arrival at
the courtyard of his palace; he used to get down from his carriage in the
midst of his Body Guards, staggering, as a man half awake will do, which
was mistaken for intoxication.

The majority of the deputies who came imbued with prejudices produced by
error or malevolence, went to lodge with the most humble private
individuals of Versailles, whose inconsiderate conversation contributed
not a little to nourish such mistakes. Everything, in short, tended to
render the deputies subservient to the schemes of the leaders of the
rebellion.

Shortly after the openin