The king alone did not notice it.

He was cheerful and happy, and it seemed to him, therefore, that nobody at his court could dare sigh when he, the king, was satisfied.
After the grand presentation, at which all the great and noble of the realm had passed in formal procession before the royal pair, the king had, according to the court etiquette of the time, given his hand to his consort, led her down from the throne and conducted her to the middle of the hall, in order to present to her the personages in waiting at her court.
But this walk from the throne to the centre of the hall had greatly fatigued the king; this promenade of thirty steps was for him a very unusual and troublesome performance, and the king longed to change to something else more agreeable.

So he beckoned to the chief master of ceremonies, and bade him open the door leading into the dining-room.
Then he ordered his "house equipage" to be brought up, and, seating himself in it with the utmost stateliness, he had the sedan kept at the queen's side, waiting impatiently till the presentation should at last conclude, and Catharine accompany him to lunch.
The announcements of the maids of honor and female attendants had been already made, and now came the gentlemen's turn.
The chief master of ceremonies read from his list the names of those cavaliers who were, henceforth, to be in waiting near the queen, and which names the king had written down with his own hand.

And at each new appointment a slight expression of pleased astonishment flitted across the faces of the assembled courtiers, for it was always one of the youngest, handsomest, and most amiable lords whom the master of ceremonies had to name.
Perhaps the king proposed to play a cruel game at hazard, in surrounding his consort with the young men of his court; he wished to plunge her into the midst of danger, either to let her perish there, or, by her avoiding danger, to be able to place the unimpeachable virtue of his young wife in the clearest light.
The list had begun with the less important offices, and, ever ascending higher, they now came to positions the highest and of greatest consequence.
Still the queen's master of horse and the chamberlain had not been named, and these were without doubt the most important charges at the queen's court.

For one or the other of these officers was always very near the queen.