Her eyes were dazzled by the splendour which glittered at Versailles.

"The Queen, Maria Leczinska, the wife of Louis XV., died," she says, "just before I was presented at Court.

The grand apartments hung with black, the great chairs of state, raised on several steps, and surmounted by a canopy adorned with Plumes; the caparisoned horses, the immense retinue in Court mourning, the enormous shoulder-knots, embroidered with gold and silver spangles, which decorated the coats of the pages and footmen,--all this magnificence had such an effect on my senses that I could scarcely support myself when introduced to the Princesses.

The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed.
How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which she is reproached." When once her awe and confusion had subsided, Mademoiselle Genet was enabled to form a more accurate judgment of her situation.

It was by no means attractive; the Court of the Princesses, far removed from the revels to which Louie XV.