: Maria Antoinette Makers of History by Abbott John S C John Stevens Cabot - Marie Antoinette Queen consort of Louis XVI King of France 1755-1793

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own. "What a resource," she once exclaimed, "amid the casualties of life, is a well-cultivated mind! One can then be one's own companion, and find society in one's own thoughts." Here, in her Little Trianon, she made several unavailing attempts to retrieve, by study, those hours of childhood which had been lost. But it was too late. For a few days, with great zeal and self-denial, she would persevere in secluding herself in the library with her books. But it was in vain for the Queen of France to strive again to become a school-girl. Those days had passed forever. The innumerable interruptions of her station frustrated all her endeavors, and she was compelled to abandon the attempt in sorrow and despair. We know not upon how trivial events the great destinies of the world are suspended; and had the Queen of France possessed a highly-disciplined mind--had she been familiar with the teachings of history, and been capable of inspiring respect by her intellectual attainments, it is far from impossible that she might have lived and died in peace. But almost the only hours of enjoyment which shone upon Maria while Queen of France, was when she forgot that she was a queen, and, like a village maiden, loitered through the gardens and the groves in the midst of which the Little Trianon was embowered.

The enemies of Maria had sedulously endeavored to spread the report through France that she was still in heart an Austrian; that she loved only the country she had left, and that she had no affection for the country over which she was to reign as queen. They falsely and malignantly spread the report that she had changed the name of Little Trianon into Little Vienna. The rumor spread rapidly. It excited great displeasure. The indignant denials of Maria were disregarded. Thus the number of her enemies was steadily increasing.

Another unfortunate occurrence took place, which rendered her still more unpopular at court. Her brother Maximilian, a vain and foolish young man, made a visit to his sister at the court of Versailles, not traveling in his own proper rank, but under an assumed name. It was quite common with princes of the blood-royal, for various reasons, thus to travel. The young Austrian prince insisted that the first visit was due to him from the princes of the royal family in France. They, on the contrary insisted that, as he was not traveling in his own name, and in the recognition of his own proper rank, it was their duty to regard him as of the character he had assumed, and as this was of a rank inferior to that of a royal prince, it could not be their duty to pay the first visit. The dispute ran high. Maria, seconded by the Abb? Vermond, took the part of her brother. This greatly offended many of the highest nobility of the realm. It became a family quarrel of great bitterness. A thousand tongues were busy whispering malicious accusations against Maria. Ribald songs to sully her name were hawked through the streets. Care began to press heavily upon the brow of the dauphiness, and sorrow to spread its pallor over her cheek. Her high spirit could not brook the humility of endeavoring the refutation of the calumnies urged against her. Still, she was too sensitive not to feel them often with the intensest anguish. Her husband was comparatively a stranger to her. He bowed to her with much civility when they met, but never addressed her with a word or gesture of tenderness, or manifested the least desire to see her alone. One evening, when walking in the garden of Little Trianon, he astonished the courtiers, and almost overpowered Maria with delightful emotions, by offering her his arm. This was the most affectionate act with which he had ever approached her. Such were the bridal days of Maria Antoinette.

MARIA ANTOINETTE ENTHRONED.

"What are these pimples," inquired the king, "which are breaking out all over my body?"

"They are little pustules," was the reply, "which require three days in forming, three in suppurating, and three in drying."

The dreadful malady which had seized upon the king was soon, however, known throughout the court, and all fled from the infection. The miserable monarch, hated by his subjects, despised by his courtiers, and writhing under the scorpion lash of his own conscience, was left to groan and die alone. It was a horrible termination of a most loathsome life.

In a chamber of the palace of the Little Trianon we left the king dying of the confluent small-pox. The courtiers have fled in consternation. It is the hour of midnight, the 10th of May, 1774. The monarch of France is alone as he struggles with the king of terrors. No attendants linger around him. Two old women, in an adjoining apartment, occasionally look in upon the mass of corruption upon the royal couch, which had already lost every semblance of humanity. The eye is blinded. The swollen tongue can not articulate. What thought of remorse or terror may be rioting through the soul of the dying king, no one knows, and--no one cares. A lamp flickers at the window, which is a signal to those at a safe distance that the king still lives. Its feeble flame is to be extinguished the moment life departs. The courtiers, from the windows of the distant palace, watch with the most intense solicitude the glimmering of that midnight taper. Should the king recover, they dreaded the reproach of having deserted him in the hour of his extremity. They hope, so earnestly, that he may not live. Should he die, they are anxious to be the first in their congratulations to the new king and queen. The hours of the night linger wearily away as expectant courtiers gaze impatiently through the gloom upon that dim torch. The horses are harnessed in the carriages, and waiting at the doors, that the courtiers, without the loss of a moment, may rush to do homage to the new sovereign.

The clock was tolling the hour of twelve at night when the lamp was extinguished. The miserable king had ceased to breathe. The ensuing scene no pen can delineate or pencil paint. The courtiers, totally forgetful of French etiquette, rushed down the stairs, crowded into their carriages, and the silence of night was disturbed by the clattering of the horses' hoofs, as they were urged, at their utmost speed, to the apartments of the dauphin.

There Maria Antoinette and Louis, with a few family friends, were awaiting the anticipated intelligence of the death of their grandfather the king. Though neither of them could have cherished any feelings of affection for the dissolute old monarch, it was an hour to awaken in the soul emotions of the deepest melancholy. Death had approached, in the most frightful form, the spot on earth where, probably, of all others, he was most dreaded. Suddenly a noise was heard, as of thunder, in the ante-chamber of the dauphin. It was the rush of the courtiers from the dead monarch to bow at the shrine of the new dispensors of wealth and power. This extraordinary tumult, in the silence of midnight, conveyed to Maria and Louis the first intelligence that the crown of France had fallen upon their brows. Louis was then twenty-four years of age, modest, timid, and conscientious. Maria was twenty, mirthful, thoughtless, and shrinking from responsibility. They were both overwhelmed, and, falling upon their knees, exclaimed, with gushing tears, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young to govern."

The Countess de Noailles was the first to salute Maria Antoinette as Queen of France. She entered the private saloon in which they were sitting, and requested their majesties to enter the grand audience hall, where the princes and all the great officers of state were anxious to do homage to their new sovereigns. Maria Antoinette, leaning upon her husband's arm, and with her handkerchief held to her eyes, which were bathed in tears, received these first expressions of loyalty. There was, however, not an individual found to mourn for the departed king. No one was willing to endanger his safety by any act of respect toward his remains. The laws of France required that the chief surgeon should open the body of the departed monarch and embalm it, and that the first gentleman of the bed-chamber should hold the head while the operation was performed.

"You will see the body properly embalmed?" said the gentleman of the bed-chamber to the surgeon.

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