La Princesse que n'avait pas de Royaume, Part II

The Princess without a kingdom was very gentile.  Every time that she passed a palace, she would stop to greet the inhabitants.
Thus, one beautiful morning, her cart pulled up the avenue of the palace of the grand-duchess Marie-Jacquotte at a grand trot.  At which point, seeing that the princess was beautiful, the grand-duchess scowled her eyebrows and shook her jester to wake him.  "Run and give this to my son, Prince Perfect," she ordered him, giving him a purse of gold coins*, "and tell him to go on a day-long boat trip."
She didn't want Prince Perfect to meet the princess, for fear that he would fall in love with her.

After all, what good would be a wife without a kingdom?
The grand-duchess then sent for her six daughters to have a tea party with the princess.
The tea wasn't served in the finest china, and the small cakes weren't the most delicate because it was always like that for the princess without a kingdom.**
But the jester told his best jokes, and the princess laughed brightly, and it was good that the grand-duchess didn't understand it all.


After her departure, the six young girls dragged the princess into their room and offered her their old dresses.  "This doesn't bother you, all these second-hand duds?" they asked her, giggling with laughter.
But the princess thanked them, because she knew that she would get a good price for this noble garb.
Meanwhile the jester offered her one of his pairs of red hose because he was afraid that she had cold feet.
Afterwards the princess descended to the stables to get Coquette, who was sharing some bits of grass with a big, gloomy-looking horse.  "Splendid, Coquette," she said to her, "you've made yourself a friend!"  In a little while, they were off to resell the rich attire and the ball-gowns.  But the princess kept the red hose for herself.


*This was the hardest thing ever to translate because the French don't see fit to close quotation marks until the whole spoken word is finished, not even to designate the narrative parts.  The quotation marks, which look like this: <<  >>, opened at the "Run and give" and closed at the "boat trip".  I kept trying to figure out how to translate the "she ordered him, giving him a purse of gold coins" into the quotation of the grand-duchess, when it wasn't her speaking at all!  That was super confusing.  


**No, I know that doesn't make much sense.  Just roll with it.