IV.
Meanwhile, my faithful Pierrette did not forget me. And one day a wonderful thing happened to her. She told me all about it afterwards.
It was Easter Monday. Pierrette was sitting before the curé's door, working and singing, when she saw a gorgeous carriage, drawn by six horses, coming through the avenue. It rolled right up to the curé's house, and then stopped. Pierrette now saw that the carriage was empty. As she was gazing with all her eyes, the equerry, taking off his hat with great politeness, begged her to enter the vehicle.
Pierrette had too much good sense to make any needless fuss. She simply slipped off her sabots, put on her shoes with the silver buckles, folded her work, and, assisted by the footman's arm, stepped into the carriage as if to the manner born.
Soon she found herself at Trianon, where she was conducted through gilded apartments into the Queen's presence. With the Queen was Madame de Lamballe, seated in an embrasure of a window, before an easel.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Queen, gaily, "here she is!" And she ran up to Pierrette, and took both her hands in her own. "How pretty she is!" she went on; "what a dear little model she will be for you! Sit there, my child."
With these words, Marie Antoinette gently pushed the bewildered Pierrette into a very high chair, where she sat with her pretty feet dangling.
"SHE SAW A GORGEOUS CARRIAGE."
"Now listen to me, little one," continued the Queen. "Two gentlemen will shortly be coming here. Whether you do or do not recognise one of them is no matter, but whatever they tell you, that you must do. You will have to sing; I know that you can sing. Whenever they tell you to enter or to depart, to go or to come, you will obey them exactly. Do you understand me? All this will be for your good. This lady and I will help the gentlemen to teach you, and all that we ask in return for our pains is that, for one hour every day, you will sit for madame. You will not consider that any great hardship?"