"Here is a gentleman," said Lewis to Mary, "whom you will be glad to see." Then, after entreating his guests to visit him next day at Versailles, and to let him have the pleasure of showing them his buildings, pictures, and plantations, he took the unceremonious leave of an old friend.
In a few hours the royal pair were informed that, as long as they would do the King of France the favour to accept of his hospitality, forty-five thousand pounds sterling a year would be paid them from his treasury.

Ten thousand pounds sterling were sent for outfit.
The liberality of Lewis, however, was much less rare and admirable than the exquisite delicacy with which he laboured to soothe the feelings of his guests and to lighten the almost intolerable weight of the obligations which he laid upon them.

He who had hitherto, on all questions of precedence, been sensitive, litigious, insolent, who had been more than once ready to plunge Europe into war rather than concede the most frivolous point of etiquette, was now punctilious indeed, but punctilious for his unfortunate friends against himself.

He gave orders that Mary should receive all the marks of respect that had ever been paid to his own deceased wife.

A question was raised whether the Princes of the House of Bourbon were entitled to be indulged with chairs in the presence of the Queen.