Just then the carriage of the Princess Adelaide, daughter of Louis the Fifteenth, and aunt of Louis the Sixteenth, drove through the great gate into the guarded vestibule of the palace; two outriders rode in advance, two lackeys stood on the stand behind the carriage, and upon the step on each side, a page in richly-embroidered garments.
Before the middle portal, which could only be used by the royal family, and which had never been desecrated by the entrance of one who was "lowly-born," the carriage came to a standstill. The lackeys hastened to open the gate, and a lady, advanced in years, gross in form, with an irritable face well pitted with pock-marks, and wearing no other expression than supercilious pride and a haughty indifference, dismounted with some difficulty, leaning upon the shoulder of her page, and toiled up the steps which conducted to the great vestibule.
The runner sprang before her up the great staircase covered with its carpets, and with his long staff rapped on the door of the first antechamber that led to the apartments of the queen. "Madame Adelaide!" shouted he with a loud voice, and the lackey repeated it in the same tone, quickly opening the door of the second antechamber; and the word was taken up by the chamberlains, and repeated and carried along where the queen was sitting.
Marie Antoinette shrugged herself together a little at this announcement, which interrupted her while engaged in charming unrestrained conversation with the Duchess de Polignac, and a shadow flitted across her lofty brow.
With fiery quickness she flung her arms around the neck of her friend, and pressed a kiss upon her lips. "Farewell, Julia; Madame Adelaide is coming: that is just the same as irritation and annoyance. She may not bear the least suspicion of this upon her fine and dearly-loved face, and just because they are not there, I must tell you, my dear friend, to leave me. But hold yourself in readiness, after Madame Annoyance has left me, to ride with me to Trianon. The queen must remain here half an hour still, but she will be rewarded for it, for Marie Antoinette will afterward go with her Julia to Trianon to spend a half day of pleasure with her husband and friends."
"And to impart to her friends an eternity of blissful recollections," said the duchess, with a charming smile, pressing the hand of the queen to her lips, and taking her leave with inimitable grace, in order to pass out through the little side-door which entered the corridor through a porcelain cabinet, intending then to visit the rooms of the 'children of France.'
At the same moment in which the lofty, dignified form of the duchess disappeared through the side-door, both wings of the main entrance were flung open, and the two maids of honor of the queen advanced to the threshold, and made so deep a reverence that their immense petticoats expanded like a kettle. Then they took a step backward, made another reverence so profound that their heads, bearing coiffures a foot and a half high, fell upon their breasts.
"Madame Adelaide!" they both ejaculated as with one voice, slowly straightening themselves up and taking their places at the sides of the door.
The princess now appeared upon the threshold; behind her, her maids of honor and master of ceremonies, the grand-chamberlain, the pages, and both masters of grooms, standing in the great antechambers.
At the appearance of the maids of honor, Marie Antoinette had taken her position in the middle of the chamber, and could not repress a faint smile, as with erect head she noticed the confusion instant upon the princess's imposing entrance.