Now that the garden party was at its height, Lafayette was the undisputed leader of the youths. It was he who swooped down upon the stately Mistress of the Robes and ordered his band of hobgoblins to carry her off to the summer-house on the edge of the woods, and keep her a prisoner there, while they sang her the latest ballads of the Paris streets. It was he who had a ring of fairies dance about the Lord Chamberlain until that haughty person was so dizzy that he had to put his hands to his eyes and run as rapidly as dignity would let him to a place of safety. The boy took his orders from the beautiful Queen of the Fairies, Marie Antoinette, who, more radiant and lovely than ever, sat on the rustic throne and sent her messengers to the different groups in the gardens. Beside her stood the young King Louis, laughing and admiring the ingenuity of her plans.
Next day, however, came the retribution. The courtiers were up in arms. They had managed to go through one such evening, but they did not propose to stand another. The most important people in France went to the King and placed their grievances before him. Louis loved peace, so that now he was willing to take the side of the courtiers, and as a result the day of the children was over.
Marie Antoinette, fond of pleasure above everything else, tried to have her way for a short time, but before a month had passed, the weight of its old time formal dignity had fallen on Versailles, and the children were again made to pattern after their elders.
Fond as the young Marquis had been of the good times with playmates of his own age at Versailles, he could not endure the stiff court nor look with any satisfaction to the formal life which most of the young men of the time led. He was naturally too independent to bow and scrape as was required. In spite of his careful training he found that he had not acquired the endless flow of frivolous talk which was popular at court. He was usually silent in company, and more and more given to going away by himself, in order to escape the affectations of the life about him. His only chance seemed to lie in the army, and therefore he spent a great deal of his time with his regiment of Black Musketeers, and began to plan for a military career.