It was considered presumptuous and dangerous to alter any customs of the court of France; but this queen thought fit to alter one among others. It had always, before her time, been the etiquette for the lady of the highest rank who appeared in readiness in the queen's chamber, to slip her majesty's petticoats over her head in dressing; but when her majesty was pleased to have her head dressed so high that no petticoat would go over it, but must be slipped up from her feet, she used to step into her closet, to be dressed by her favourite milliner and one of her women. This change gave great offence to the ladies who thought they had a right to the honour of dressing the queen. Her majesty came forth from her closet ready to go to mass in the chapel, on certain days: and by this time her chaplains were in waiting among her suite. The royal princesses and their trains stood waiting to follow the queen to the chapel: but, strangely enough, this was the hour appointed for signing deeds of gift on the part of the queen. These gifts were too often licences for the exclusive sale of articles which all should have been left free to sell. The secretary of the queen presented the pen to her majesty; and at these hours she signed away the goodwill of thousands of well-disposed subjects. At such a moment, while she stood, beautiful and smiling, among a crowd of adorers, and while her husband, with smutted face and black hands, was filing his locks in his attic, how little did either of them think that their eldest son was sinking to his grave, and that the storm of popular fury was even now growling within their dominions,--the tremendous storm which was to prove fatal to themselves! At this hour of the toilet, on the first day of the month, the queen was presented with her pocket-money for the month--the sum which she might do what she liked with, and out of which she made presents. This sum was always in gold, and was presented in a purse of white kid, embroidered in silver, and lined with white silk. Its amount was, on an average for the year round, 12,500 pounds. It was by saving out of this allowance that she paid for the pair of diamond ear-rings which she bought soon after her marriage; but it took six years' savings to pay for that one ornament. She was young and giddy when she bought those jewels, and she paid for them out of her own pocket-money; but, as has been seen, the purchase did not sound well in the ears of peasants who boiled nettles for food when they could get no bread, from the pressure of the taxes. Whether the discontented knew it or not, a good deal of this monthly gold went in charity--charity, however, which did not do half the good that self-denial would have done.