CHAPTER IV.
Marie Antoinette gives her Mother her First Impressions of the Court and of her own Position and Prospects .-- Court Life at Versailles .-- Marie Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette .-- Character of the Duc d'Aiguillon .-- Cabals against the Dauphiness .-- Jealousy of Mme.

du Barri .-- The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her .-- She becomes more and more Popular .-- Parties for Donkey-riding .-- Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income .-- Her Influence over the King .-- The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed .-- She begins to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.
Marie Antoinette herself was inclined to be delighted with all that befell her, and to make light of what she could hardly regard as pleasant or becoming; and two of her first letters to her mother, written in the early part of July,[1] give us an insight into the feelings with which she regarded her new family and her own position, as well as a picture of her daily occupations and of the singular customs of the French court, strangely inconsistent in what it permitted and in what it disallowed, and, in the publicity in which its princes lived, curiously incompatible with ordinary ideas of comfort and even delicacy.
"The king," she says, "is full of kindnesses toward me, and I love him tenderly.

But it is pitiable to see his weakness for Madame du Barri, who is the silliest and most impertinent creature that it is possible to conceive.

She has played with us every evening at Marly,[2] and she has twice been seated next to me; but she has not spoken to me, and I have not attempted to engage in conversation with her; but, when it was necessary, I have said a word or two to her.
"As for my dear husband, he is greatly changed, and in a most advantageous manner.

He shows a great deal of affection for me, and is even beginning to treat me with great confidence.