Nattier
MADAME ADÉLAÏDE
Each of the princesses had her own household, and when mere children they gave balls and received the ambassadors. It was the custom that in the absence of the King, Queen, and Dauphin, the watchword should be given to the sentinel by the eldest princess present. On one occasion when this was Madame Adélaïde, her governess, then the Duchesse de Tallard, complained to Cardinal Fleury that it was not proper for the princess, being a young girl, to whisper in a man’s ear. The Cardinal spoke to the King, who decided that although Madame Adélaïde must still give the consigne, she should first ask her governess the name of which saint she was to say.
Madame Victoire was very pretty, all the rest except the two eldest, were plain; and her parents were delighted with her when she returned from the convent. The King and Dauphin went to meet her at Sceaux and took her to Versailles to the Queen, who embraced her tenderly. Neither she nor her younger sisters were half educated, but the Dauphin, who was very fond of them and had great influence over them persuaded them to study.
When first Madame Victoire appeared at court her sisters, Henriette and Adélaïde, and her brother the Dauphin, who were inseparable, were inclined to find her in the way and treat her as a child, but they soon became very fond of her, and she at once had her own household and took part in all the court gaieties as her sisters had done from the earliest age.
The Queen, too indolent to write to them separately, on one occasion when she was at Compiègne and they at Versailles, wrote as follows:—
“J’embrasse la gracieuse souveraine,[65] la sainte Henriette, la ridicule Adélaïde la belle Victoire.”
Henriette and Adélaïde were devoted to their old governess, the Duchesse de Ventadour. They got her an appartement next to theirs at Versailles, and in her salon, amongst her friends, they always spent an hour or two every evening after supper. Madame Henriette used to say it was the happiest part of her day. The Duchesse de Ventadour was an excellent woman, though she had been rather galante [65] in her youth. She and her mother had brought up twenty-three “Children of France.” The mother was said to have saved the life of Louis XV. by giving him a counter-poison.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] “Journal de Barbier, Chronique de la Régence, 1755.”