And, though no one shared his feelings on the subject, for the next few weeks the whole kingdom, and especially the capital, was absorbed in public rejoicings.

Her own thankfullness was displayed by Marie Antoinette in her usual way, by acts of benevolence.
She sent large sums of money to the prisons to release poor debtors; she gave dowries to a hundred poor maidens; she applied to the chief officers of both army and navy to recommend her veterans worthy of especial reward; and to the curates of the metropolitan parishes to point out to her any deserving objects of charity; and she also settled pensions on a number of poor children who were born on the same day as the princess; one of whom, who owed her education to this grateful and royal liberality, became afterward known to every visitor of Paris as Madame Mars, the most accomplished of comic actresses.[5] One portion of the rejoicings was marked by a curious incident, in which the same body whose right to a special place of honor at ceremonies connected with the personal happiness of the royal family we have already seen admitted--the ladies of the fish-market--again asserted their pretensions with triumphant success.

On Christmas-eve the theatres were opened gratuitously, but these ladies, who, with their friends, the coal-heavers, selected the most aristocratic theatre, La Comedie Francaise, for the honor of their visit, arrived with aristocratic unpunctuality, so late that the guards stopped them at the doors, declaring that the house was full, and that there was not a seat vacant.
They declared that in any event room must be made for them.

"Who were in the boxes of the king and queen?
for on such occasions those places were theirs of right." Even they, however, were full, and the guards demurred to the ladies' claim to be considered, though for this night only, as the representatives of royalty, and to have the existing occupants of the seats demanded turned out to make room for them.

The box-keeper and the manager were sent for.