with their good father, and had nothing to think of but the
pleasure they could give with their great gifts.

X

Lafayette

The Boy of Versailles: 1757-1834

Marie Antoinette, the little Queen of France, was giving a fete at the
royal palace of Versailles, outside of Paris, and the beautiful gardens
of the palace, world famous for their wonderful statues and fountains,
flowers and groves, presented an amazing sight on that midsummer night.
A hundred elves and fairies, hobgoblins and wood-nymphs danced in and
out about groups of strangely dressed grown-up people, who were neither
in court costume nor in real masquerade. The older lords and ladies of
the court were trying to humor their young Queen's whim without parting
with any of their dignity, and the result of their attempt was this very
curious sight--tall, stiff goblins, wearing elaborate, powdered wigs and
jeweled swords, stout wood-nymphs with bare arms and shoulders, and
glittering with jewels.

Never had the court of France thought itself so absolutely absurd, and
never had the children of that famous court enjoyed themselves so much.
They played all sorts of games about the dignified people scattered over
the grounds, until the latter were quite ready to believe that the days
of elves and fairies had really returned.

The boy Marquis de Lafayette led the revels. It was he to whom the
little Queen had appealed for help when she first planned her garden
party. Her boy husband, Louis XVI, was more interested in machinery than
in anything else. He was fond of taking clocks to pieces and putting
them together again, and in working over old locks and keys, and so had
left his young Queen very much to herself ever since he had brought her
from Austria to France.

Marie Antoinette was passionately fond of fun, and the stiff lords and
ladies of her husband's court bored her extremely. They were anxious
above everything else to keep up their old ceremonies, and to make life
simply a matter of rules. So it was that the girl turned to the young
boy Marquis, who was almost as fond of sports as she was, and with his
help gathered a band of boys and girls of her own age about her.

Then one summer day, while Louis was busy in his workshop, Marie
Antoinette plotted with Lafayette to hold a _fete champetre_ in the
gardens which should be very different from anything the court of France
had seen before. She said that all her guests should appear either as
gobl