"No, your majesty," replied Bertin, reverentially, "I bring the materials wherewith to fill your majesty's orders."
"Were you not told to bring your samples of fashions?" asked Marie
Antoinette, with surprise.
"Your majesty, there are no new fashions," said Bertin. "Your majesty's word is necessary to create them. A queen does not follow the fashion, it follows her."
"Ah! you intend that I shall invent now fashions?"
"Yes, your majesty. The Queen of France cannot stoop to wear that which has already been worn by others."
"You are right," said the queen, pleased by the flattery of the shrewd modiste." Make haste, and show me your goods, that I may begin at once to set the fashions to the court. It will be quite an amusement to invent new modes of dress."
Mademoiselle Bertin smiled, and, opening her boxes, exhibited her goods. There were the beautiful silken fabrics of Lyons; the shimmering white satin, besprinkled with bouquets that rivalled nature; there were heavy, shining velvets, heightened by embroidery of gold and silver; laces, from Alencon and Valenciennes, whose web was as delicate as though elfin fingers, had spun the threads; muslins, from India, so fine that they could only he woven in water; crapes, from China, with the softness of satin and the sheen of velvet; there were graceful ostrich-plumes from Africa, and flowers from Paris, so wondrous in their beauty that nothing was wanting to their perfection save perfume.
Marie Antoinette flitted from one treasure to another; her white hands at one moment deriving new beauty from the dark velvets upon which they rested; at another, looking lovelier than ever, as they toyed with the transparent laces. There was nothing queenly about her now. She was merely a charming woman, anxious to outshine all other women in the eyes of one man.
When Mademoiselle Berlin took her leave, the queen gave her orders to return to the palace daily. "One thing I shall exact of you, mademoiselle, you shall disclose the secret of my toilet for the day to nobody; and the fashions shall be made public at the end of one week."
Mademoiselle Bertin, with a solemnity befitting the importance of her office, swore that henceforth the hands which had been honored by carrying out the ideas of a queen, should never work for lesser mortals; that her dresses should be made with closed doors, and that she would rather be led to execution than betray to a living soul the mysteries of her royal patroness's toilet. [Footnote: Mademoiselle Bertin, from that day, became an important personage, and received many a rich present from noble ladies anxious to imitate the queen in dress.]