But at the same time, as there was no illiberality in his economy, or, rather, as he saw that real economy could only be practiced if the sovereigns had a fixed income really adequate to the call upon it, he placed their allowances on a more satisfactory footing than had ever been fixed for them before, the queen's privy purse being settled at a sum which Mercy agreed with him would prove sufficient for all her expenses, though it was but 200,000 francs a year.
And so it was generally found to be; for, with the exception of an occasional fancy for some splendid jewel, Marie Antoinette had no expensive tastes.

Her economy was even far greater than her attendants approved, extending to details which they would have wished her to regard as beneath the dignity of a sovereign;[1] and so judiciously did she manage her resources that she was able to defray out of her privy purse the pensions which she occasionally conferred on men eminent in arts or literature, whom she rightly judged it a royal duty to encourage.
One of her first acts of liberality of this kind was exercised in favor of a countryman of her own, the celebrated Gluck.

Music was one of her most favorite accomplishments.

She still devoted a portion of almost every day in taking lessons on the harp; but the French music was not to her taste; while, since the death of Handel, Gluck's superiority to all his other musical contemporaries had been generally acknowledged in all countries.
She now, by the gift of a pension of 6000 francs, induced him to visit Paris.

It was at the French opera that many of his most celebrated works were first given to the world; and an incident which took place at the performance of one of them showed that, if the frequenters of Versailles were dissatisfied at the inroads lately made on the old etiquette, the queen had a compensation in the warm attachment with which she had inspired the Parisians.