At length, in September 1768, the King of France made a formal proposal for the hand of the archduchess, who was not yet thirteen years old, and the empress wrote to count Mercy d'Argenteau, her ambassador in Paris, to give orders for the trousseau, on which she was prepared to lay out 16,000_l._ As the wedding was not to take place for a year and a half at any rate, this seems a little early to begin, but there was so much beautiful lace to be made, and wonderful embroidery to be done, that the workers did not think the time any too long. Then her brother Joseph II. often came into her private sitting-room in the evening and talked to her about European politics, of which, he truly said, she ought to know something, or the abbé de Vermond was bidden to join the family in the evening and relate the lives of the French queens, and the genealogy of the Bourbons and Valois, besides the names of the chief officers of state and of the great nobles. All these things Marie Antoinette picked up quickly; and as for the army, the abbé used to say she would soon know every colonel of every regiment. Besides this sort of education, the empress felt that her daughter must learn how to take her place in the world, so once or twice a week she was allowed to have parties of ten or twelve in her own rooms, at which she presided, and here they would play _cavagnol_ or other fashionable card games, for in those days cards were played every night, and large sums were staked. The wedding-day drew nearer and nearer, and the empress's heart sometimes failed her at the thought of the child she was sending forth alone. As she was very busy all day, she made her daughter sleep during the last weeks in her room at night, and here she warned her against all the temptations she might find in the court, and read to her out of a little book which her husband had once written for his children. Very useful was the counsel he gave, the dangers he foresaw being mostly those which beset Marie Antoinette during her married life, and led to her downfall. 'Beware,' he said 'of making friends quickly, or of allowing pleasure to become a business when it should only be an amusement. Beware of flattering tongues, and of persuading yourself that things may be innocent when really they are harmful. Do not let the world absorb you, till you forget that you are mortal, but put aside two days in every year to think of death.' As the young archduchess read these words her soul grew serious within her, and she promised her mother that she would keep the book always, and strive to act as her father would have wished. And so she did; but she was young and alone, and if court life is difficult everywhere, in France it was harder than anywhere else.