She was looking forward to a greater pleasure in a visit from her. brother, the emperor, which the empress hoped might be attended with consequences more important than those of passing pleasure; since she trusted to his influence, and, if opportunity should occur, to his remonstrances, to induce the dauphin to break through the unaccountable coldness with which, in some respects, he still treated his beautiful wife.  But Joseph was forced to postpone his visit, and the fulfillment of the empress’s anticipations was also postponed for some years.

However, Marie Antoinette never allowed disappointments to dwell in her mind longer than she could help.  She rather strove to dispel the recollection of them by such amusements as were within her reach.  She learned to drive, and found great diversion in being her own charioteer through the glades of the forest.  She began to make further inroads in the court etiquette, giving balls in which she broke through the custom which prescribed that special places should be marked out for the royal family, and directed that the princes and princesses should sit with the rest of the company during the intervals between the dances; an arrangement which enabled her to talk to every one, and which gained her general good-will from the graciousness of her manner.  She did not greatly trouble herself at the jealousy of her popularity openly displayed by her aunts and her sister-in-law, who could not bear to hear her called “La bellissima.[6]” Nor was her influence weakened when, in November, a fresh princess, the sister of Madame de Provence, arrived from Italy, to be married to the Comte d’Artois, for the bride was even less attractive than her sister.  According to Mercy, she was pale and thin, had a long nose and a wide mouth, danced badly, and was very awkward in manner.  So that Louis himself, though usually very punctilious in his courtesies to those in her position, could not forbear showing how little he admired her.

An incident occurred on the evening of the marriage which is worth remarking, from the change which subsequently took place in the taste of the dauphiness, who a few years afterward provoked unfavorable comments by the ardor with which she surrendered herself to the excitement of the gaming-table.  As a matter of course, a grand party was invited to the palace to celebrate the event of the morning; and, as an invariable part of such entertainments, a table was set out for the then fashionable game of lansquenet, at which the king himself played, with the royal family and all the principal persons of the court.  In the course of the evening Marie Antoinette won more than seven hundred pounds; but she was rather embarrassed than gratified by her good fortune.  She had tried to lose the money back; but, as she had been unable to succeed, the next morning she sent the greater part of it to the curates of Versailles to be distributed among the poor, and gave the rest to some of her own attendants who seemed to her to need it, being determined, as she said, to keep none of it for herself.