Music was one of the few things Marie Antoinette learned well as a child. She played several musical instruments, but her favorite was the harp, and she played well enough to accompany some of the major composers of her time.

Dancing was a skill that all courtiers were expected to have, and it was regularly excersized both at formal balls and at more intimate gatherings. Louis Auguste, although famously clumsy, attended these, and it was the beginning of a growing social, if not physical, intimacy between the couple.