Marie Antoinette playing the harp at the French Court. Painting by Jean-Baptiste Gautier Dagoty
The queen had desired that the balls should take place in her own apartment, which gave them a semi-private character, and thus avoided the expenses which more ceremonial balls would have necessitated. She had also given up having the opera brought to Versailles, and decided that when she wished to hear it, she would go to Paris. This was at the time when the comptroller-general faithful, to his celebrated programme, – no bankruptcy, no increase of taxation, no loans,⸺ was beginning his economical reforms. The queen lent herself to them with the greatest good-will, and she did not hesitate to give up any amusements that she feared might become expensive or embarrassing. If later she allowed herself to be led into certain prodigalities, it is the more important to note that at the beginning of her reign such prodigalities were neither in accord with her principles nor her tastes.
René-Augustin de Maupeou, chancellor of France.
The public knew this; it saw with satisfaction their sovereigns setting the first example of economy in their expenditures and restraint in their pleasures. It knew also that the young princess was opposed to the renewal of the monopoly in the commerce of bread-stuffs, which had been established by the Abbé Terray, and which the public had damned with the name of the Famine Compact.
Portrait of Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau (1727-1794), Austrian Ambassador to France and the Queen.
It [the public] adored her, and Mercy could say with truth that if the authors of the libels which were beginning to appear became known in Paris, nothing could save them from the anger of the people. “Let us avenge our charming queen, of whom this wretch has dared to speak evil and write libels,” they had cried, on burning the effigy of the Chancellor Maupeou.
The Life of Marie Antoinette, Volumes 1-2 by Maxime de La Rocheterie. Page 118
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 816
