In the semi-seclusion of her palace and its adjoining pleasure grounds, her rôle of queen was forgotten. It was there that she amused herself with her ladies of honor, in playing at being shepherdess, or dairy maid. Whatever ingenuity could devise to heighten the illusion, was there produced. Innocent and harmless sports one might say, and in itself that was true, but for a Queen of France! A queen claiming still all the advantages of her rank, renouncing only what was burdensome and dull! Innocent she was, of all the crimes that calumnies imputed to her, and of what crimes did they not try to make her appear guilty; but innocent in the light of history she was not. More than any other victim perhaps of the French Revolution, she brought her doom upon herself. The sublimity, however, with which she expiated to the uttermost those thoughtless follies of her youth, enables us to pardon her as woman, though as queen, we must recognize that her fate was inevitable.
But in 1785, mirth and gaiety still reigned in the precinct of the _Petit-Trianon_. In August of the year Marie Antoinette who had always protected Beaumarchais, wishing to do him a signal honor had decided to produce upon the little stage of her palace theater the _Barbier de Séville_.
In his _Fin de l'ancien Régime_, Imbert de Saint-Amand gives the following narration of that strange incident.
"Imagine who was to take the part of Rosine, that pretty little mignonne, sweet, tender, affable, fresh and tempting, with furtive foot, artful figure, well formed, plump arms, rosy mouth, and hands! and cheeks! and teeth! and eyes! (_Le Barbier de Séville_, Act II, Scene 2). Yes, this part of Rosine, this charming child, thus described by Figaro, was to be played by whom? By the most imposing and majestic of women, the queen of France and Navarre.
"The rehearsals began under the direction of one of the best actors of the _Comédie-Française_, Dazincourt, who previously had obtained a brilliant success in the _Mariage de Figaro_. It was during the rehearsals that the first rumor of the terrible affair of the diamond necklace reached the Queen. Nevertheless she did not weaken.--Four days after the arrest of the Cardinal de Rohan, grand-almoner of France, Marie Antoinette appeared in the rôle of Rosine.