At Nemours, the Duc de Bourgogne, barely fourteen, met his bride-to-be; at first, the two adolescents were a bit shy and timid with one another, but the duc bent to kiss his future bride's hand and she blushed. They then traveled to Fontainbleau where the entire court and a large crowd gathered at the famous horseshoe stairwell. The King escorted the young princess to the various members of the court as they inched their way to the Queen Mother's apartment. There in the princess's bedroom the Duchesse du Lude, (her lady-in-waiting) had watchfully installed her bed which she later did the same at Versailles.
Comments about the young princess were kind as Madame de Maintenon wrote the princess's mother:"She has a natural courtesy which permits her to say nothing but what is pleasant. Yesterday I tried to prevent her caressing me, saying I was too old. "Ah, not so old as that!she exclaimed, and did me the honor of embracing me."
Marie Adelaide became even more familiar with the king, playing games with him (PallMall which he taught her) sitting on his lap, tugging at his chin, mussing his hair, and saying "Tu" to him, and taking rides together in the park.
The wedding itself was decided by the king to be on December 7, 1697, which was to follow her twelfth birthday. The festivities and ceremonies were to be resplendent, and while times had changed from great gaiety to a more sombre tone, now it was time to return to gaiety and pleasure and all were told to dress appropriately for the occasion. The King himself ordered magnificent coats for himself.
A certain kind of protocol in the handling of the marriage bed occurred which has received a lot of comment. For one, the king did not want the bridegroom to even kiss the tips of the fingers of the bride until two years later when they would be of age to live together, but the poor bridegroom was egged by his younger brother, the duc de Berry into getting into bed with his bride. He was reprimanded for it, when she complained about it to the king, with a remark about his health, so that he replied, "Sire, I am very well."
After the marriage, the King gave a grand ball in the Gallery of Mirrors, with orange trees hung with hundreds of sugar-conserved oranges, and fireworks falling from the skies. Fete followed fete, with the Duc as Apollo and his young wife as a Muse, the Queen of Hearts, or a Chinese princess. Louis even gave her the menagerie at Versailles with its fauves and rare birds, cows, donkeys, and goats. Here Marie Adelaide made cakes and played dairymaid as Marie Antoinette did a centruy later, churning butter for the royal breakfast - and everyone exclaimed on its flavor to please the king.
Her husband seemed to shun such friviolities. Headstrong and vile-tempered as a chld, under the guidance of his quietist tutor, the priestly Fenelon, he had become a studious, melancholy prince. In this respect, the pair are very badly mismated, but the bridegroom loved and adored his wife. They were allowed to live together two years after the wedding. Yet he hated the activities of the court, losing at cards, dancing, and all the other frivolous activities. He was so faithful to his wife that he would not look at another woman,which caused his wife to play a rather poor joke on him one time. She was the mischievous one.
Urging a friend of hers to lie in bed, pretending to be her, she had her friend call to the unsuspecting duc de Bourgogne, and he happily went to lay beside his wife, when she walks in, and chides him for being in bed with her friend, Mme de la Vrilliere, and the poor duc stammered and quailed while the young, half-naked Mme. made her way out of the bedroom to run out of the room. When others came in to learn what had happened, they could not keep from laughing while he tried to recover his composure and senses, realizing it had been a trick played upon him.
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