Versailles had come to life again. For fifteen years Mme. de Maintenon's austerity had cast a gloom over the royal pleasure palace; the disillusioned old king, grown virtuous with advancing age, had adopted an air of piety in deference to his secret wife; the nobility, ever ready to emulate their master, had quickly turned Versailles into "a court of repentant old men and pious dowagers." Then young Adelaide, gay and reckless, irrepressible and always in motion, changed everything. The darkness shrouding the palace was thrown off; laughing voices rang once more through the great mirrored galleries, the gardens and groves. - Back cover.