The queen was only concerned in the entertainments due from royal hosts to so distinguished a guest.

Most of them were of the ordinary character, there being a sort of established routine of festivity for such occasions.

And it may be taken as a proof that the court had abated somewhat of its alarm at Beaumarchais's play that "The Marriage of Figaro" was allowed to be acted on one of the king's visits to the theatre.

She also gave him an entertainment of more than usual splendor at the Trianon, at which all the ladies present, and the invitations were very numerous, were required to be dressed in white, while all the walks and shrubberies of the garden were illuminated, so that the whole scene presented a spectacle which he described in one of his letters as "a complete fairy-land; a sight worthy of the Elysian Fields themselves.[6]" But, as usual, the queen herself was the chief ornament of the whole, as she moved graciously among her guests, laying aside the character of queen to assume that of the cordial hostess; and not even taking her place at the banquet, but devoting herself wholly to the pleasurable duty of doing honor to her guests.
One of the displays was of a novel character, from which its inventors and patrons expected scientific results of importance, which, though nearly a century has since elapsed, have not yet been realized.

In the preceding year, Montgolfier had for the first time sent up a balloon, and the new invention was now exhibited in the Court of Versailles: the queen allowed the balloon to be called by her name; and, to the great admiration of Gustavus, who had a decided taste for matters which were in any way connected with practical science, the "Marie Antoinette" made a successful voyage to Chantilly.