At the period of his grandfather's death, Louis XVI.

began to be exceedingly attached to the Queen.

The first period of so deep a mourning not admitting of indulgence in the diversion of hunting, he proposed to her walks in the gardens of Choisy; they went out like husband and wife, the young King giving his arm to the Queen, and accompanied by a very small suite.

The influence of this example had such an effect upon the courtiers that the next day several couples, who had long, and for good reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace with the same apparent conjugal intimacy.

Thus they spent whole hours, braving the intolerable wearisomeness of their protracted tete-a-tetes, out of mere obsequious imitation.
The devotion of Mesdames to the King their father throughout his dreadful malady had produced that effect upon their health which was generally apprehended.