"Of what lady do you speak, Kaunitz?"
"I speak of Madame Etiquette, your majesty. She is a stiff and tiresome old dame, I grant you, but in France she presides over every thing. Without her the royal family can neither sleep nor wake; they can neither take a meal if they be in health, nor a purge if they be indisposed, without her everlasting surveillance. She directs their dress, amusements, associates, and behavior; she presides over their pleasures, their weariness, their social hours, and their hours of solitude. This may be uncomfortable, but royalty cannot escape it, and it must he endured."
"It is the business of Madame de Noailles to attend to the requisitions of court etiquette," said the empress, impatiently. "And of the dauphiness to attend to her representations," added Kaunitz.
"She will certainly have enough discretion to conform herself to such obligations!"
"Your majesty, a girl of fifteen who has a hundred thousand lovers is not apt to be troubled with discretion. The dauphiness is bored to death by Madame de Noailles's eternal sermons, and therein she may be right. But she turns the mistress of ceremonies into ridicule, and therein she is wrong. In an outburst of her vexation the dauphiness one day called her 'old Madame Etiquette,' and, as the bon mots of a future queen are apt to be repeated, Madame de Noailles goes by no other name at court. Again—not long ago the dauphiness gave a party of pleasure at Versailles. The company were mounted on donkeys."
"On donkeys!" cried the empress with horror.
"On donkeys," repeated Kaunitz, with composure. "The donkey on which the dauphiness rode was unworthy of the honor conferred upon it. It threw its royal rider."
"And Antoinette fell off?"
"She fell, your majesty—and fell without exercising any particular discretion in the matter. The Count d'Artois came forward to her assistance, but she waved him off, saying with comic earnestness, 'Do not touch me for your life! Send a courier for Madame Etiquette and wait until she has prescribed the important ceremonies with which a dauphiness is to be remounted upon the back of her donkey.' Every one laughed of course, and the next day when the thing was repeated, everybody in Paris was heartily amused—except Madame de Noailles. She did not laugh."
Neither could the empress vouchsafe a smile, although the affair was ludicrous enough. She was still walking to and fro, her face scarlet with mortification. She stopped directly in front of her unsympathizing minister, and said: "You are right. I must warn Antoinette that she is going too far. Oh, my heart bleeds when I think of my dear, inexperienced child cast friendless upon the reef, of that dangerous and corrupt court of France! My God! my God! why did I not heed the warning I received? Why did I consent to let her go?"