The "Mesdames" did not get along well with queen Marie-Antoinette. When the queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other informal habits which undermined the formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the queen's reforms, which gathered in the salon of the "Mesdames". They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister Maurepas, whom Adelaide had elevated to power, by the prince of Condé and the prince of Conti, both members of the Anti-Austrian party, as well as Beaumarchais, who read aloud his satires of Austria and its power figures. The Austrian Ambassador Mercy reported that their salon was a centre of intrigues against Marie Antoinette, were the "Mesdames" tolerated poems satirizing the queen. The Mesdames gathered the extreme conservative Dévots party of the nobility opposed to the philosophers, the encyclopedists and the economists.