interrupted my reading to them to accompany the princes to Louis XV.; this visit was called the King’s ‘debotter’,—[Debotter, meaning the time of unbooting.]—and was marked by a kind of etiquette. Mesdames put on an enormous hoop, which set out a petticoat ornamented with gold or embroidery; they fastened a long train round their waists, and concealed the undress of the rest of their clothing by a long cloak of black taffety which enveloped them up to the chin. The chevaliers d’honneur, the ladies in waiting, the pages, the equerries, and the ushers bearing large flambeaux, accompanied them to the King. In a moment the whole palace, generally so still, was in motion; the King kissed each Princess on the forehead, and the visit was so short that the reading which it interrupted was frequently resumed at the end of a quarter of an hour; Mesdames returned to their apartments, and untied the strings of their petticoats and trains; they resumed their tapestry, and I my book." The Mesdames had a good relationship with the children of their brother, and it was said that they "proved that piety is not incompatible with intellectual charm." In 1770, the fourteen-year-old Marie-Antoinette became Dauphine by marriage to Madame Adélaïde's nephew the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI of France. This marriage had been declared by Choiseul, advisory of the Dévot party and therefore of the Mesdames, and Adélaïde declared that if she had any say, she would not have sent for an Austrian. Because of the close relationship between the Dauphin and his aunts, Marie Antoinette also initially came close to the Mesdames her first years in France as the senior royal women at court. The Mesdames used to alternate with the Countess of Provence in accompanying Marie Antoinette on official assignments. Madame Adélaïde tried to win the Dauphine's support against Mme du Barry and repeatedly enticed the Dauphine to snub Madame du Barry. Being the first lady of the court, Madame du Barry could not speak to the Dauphine without being spoken to by her first and, encouraged by Madame Adélaïde, Marie Antoinette refused to do so. In 1772, this state of affairs created a serious rift in the relationship between the King and Marie Antoinette, and Empress Maria Theresa and her ambassador, concerned by the political consequences if this rift were to lead to a conflict between France and Austria, forced the