Now look you, in accordance with this resolve, Madame
Adelaide is coming to Versailles to pay a visit to her distinguished
niece."
Just then the carriage of the Princess Adelaide, daughter of Louis
the Fifteenth, and aunt of Louis the Sixteenth, drove through the
great gate into the guarded vestibule of the palace; two outriders
rode in advance, two lackeys stood on the stand behind the carriage,
and upon the step on each side, a page in richly-embroidered
garments.
Before the middle portal, which could only be used by the royal
family, and which had never been desecrated by the entrance of one
who was "lowly-born," the carriage came to a standstill. The lackeys
hastened to open the gate, and a lady, advanced in years, gross in
form, with an irritable face well pitted with pock-marks, and
wearing no other expression than supercilious pride and a haughty
indifference, dismounted with some difficulty, leaning upon the
shoulder of her page, and toiled up the steps which conducted to the
great vestibule.
The runner sprang before her up the great staircase covered with its
carpets, and with his long staff rapped on the door of the first
antechamber that led to the apartments of the queen. "Madame
Adelaide!" shouted he with a loud voice, and the lackey repeated it
in the same tone, quickly opening the door of the second
antechamber; and the word was taken up by the chamberlains, and
repeated and carried along where the queen was sitting.
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