Except that as yet she saw no prospect of presenting the empress with a grandchild, she had hardly a wish ungratified.
Her taste for open-air exercise of this kind added also to the attachment felt for her by the lower classes, from the opportunities which arose out of it for showing her unvarying and considerate kindness.

The contrast which her conduct afforded to that of previous princes, and indeed to that of all the present race except her husband, caused her actions of this sort to be estimated rather above their real importance.

But how great was the impression which they did make on those who witnessed them may be seen in the unanimity with which the chroniclers of the time record her forbidding her postilions to drive over a field of corn which lay between her and the stag, because she would rather miss the sight of the chase than injure the farmer; and relate how, on one occasion, she gave up riding for a week or two, and sent her horses back from Compiegne to Versailles, because the wife of her head-groom was on the point of her confinement, and she wished her to have her husband near her at such a moment; and on another, when the horse of one of her attendants kicked her, and inflicted a severe bruise on her foot, she abstained from mentioning the hurt, lest it should bring the rider into disgrace by being attributed to his awkward management.
Not that the intrigues of the mistress and her adherents were at all diminished.

They were even more active than ever since the marriage of the Count de Provence, who, in an underhanded way, instigated his wife to show countenance to Madame du Barri, and who allowed, if he did not encourage, the mistress and her friends to speak slightingly of the dauphiness in his presence.

But, as Marie Antoinette felt firmer in her own position, she could afford to disregard the malice of these caballers more than she had felt that she could do at first, and even to defy them.