Marie-Antoinette hunting Painting by Louis-Auguste Brun
One time, when Louis XVI was hunting in Compiègne, Marie Antoinette followed the beaters in a barouche. The buck fled straight to where the king and the hunt were waiting, racing straight through a wheat field. Marie Antoinette ordered her driver not to follow the pursued animal. She did not want to damage the harvest and knew that the indemnity normally paid out to farmers in such cases was insufficient.
Pierre de Nolhac, Marie-Antoinette Dauphine (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1898), p. 242. (Nobility.org translation.)
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 118
