... enjoying her own little laiterie d'agrement. (Marie Antoinette's was behind the Chateau de Rambouillet.)

Actually, I wonder -- was there really a hint of that sort of "playing pastoral" attitude in Mrs Martin's saying that Harriet could have a sort of honorary pet cow?

Here's a quote from an article, "Marie Antoinette's dairy at Rambouillet" (which can be found in full at http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-66217948.html):

"The pleasure dairies that sprang up in the second half of the eighteenth century were closely linked to the development of landscape gardening and the theory of the 'picturesque', a romanticized view of nature... particularly strong in England (...)"