They adopted the plan of learning and performing all the best plays of the French theatre.
The Dauphin was the only spectator.

The three Princesses, the two brothers of the King, and Messieurs Campan, father and son, were the sole performers, but they endeavoured to keep this amusement as secret as an affair of State; they dreaded the censure of Mesdames, and they had no doubt that Louis XV.

would forbid such pastimes if he knew of them.

They selected for their performance a cabinet in the entresol which nobody had occasion to enter.
A kind of proscenium, which could be taken down and shut up in a closet, formed the whole theatre.

The Comte de Provence always knew his part with imperturbable accuracy; the Comte d'Artois knew his tolerably well, and recited elegantly; the Princesses acted badly.