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MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER SON
by Louise Muhlbach
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
A HAPPY QUEEN.
It was the 13th of August, 1785. The queen, Marie Antoinette, had atlast yielded to the requests and protestations of her dear subjects.She had left her fair Versailles and loved Trianon for one day, andhad gone to Paris, in order to exhibit herself and the young princewhom she had borne to the king and the country on the 25th of March,and to receive in the cathedral of Notre Dame the blessing of theclergy and the good wishes of the Parisians.
She had had an enthusiastic reception, this beautiful and much lovedqueen, Marie Antoinette. She had driven into Paris in an opencarriage, in company with her three children, and every one whorecognized her had greeted her with a cheerful huzzah, and followedher on the long road to Notre Dame, at whose door the prominentclergy awaited her, the cardinal, Prince Louis de Rohan, at theirhead, to introduce her to the house of the King of all kings.
Marie Antoinette was alone; only the governess of the children, theDuchess de Polignac, sat opposite her, upon the back seat of thecarriage, and by her side the Norman nurse, in her charmingvariegated district costume, cradling in her arms Louis Charles, theyoung Duke of Normandy. By her side, in the front part of thecarriage, sat her other two children—Therese, the princess royal,the first-born daughter, and the dauphin Louis, the presumptive heirof the much loved King Louis the Sixteenth. The good king had notaccompanied his spouse on this journey to Paris, which she undertookin order to show to her dear, yet curious Parisians that she wascompletely recovered, and that her children, the children of France,were blossoming for the future like fair buds of hope and peace.
"Go, my dear Antoinette," the king had said to his queen, in hispleasant way and with his good natured smile—" go to Paris in orderto prepare a pleasure for my good people. Show them our children,and receive from them their thanks for the happiness which you havegiven to me and to them. I will not go with you, for I wish that youshould be the sole recipient of the enthusiasm of the people andtheir joyful acclamations. I will not share your triumph, but Ishall experience it in double measure if you enjoy it alone. Go,therefore, my beloved Antoinette, and rejoice in this happy hour."
Marie Antoinette did go, and she did rejoice in the happiness of thehour. "While riding through Paris, hundreds recognized her, hundredshailed her with loud acclamations. As she left the cathedral ofNotre Dame, in order to ascend into the carriage again with herchildren and their governess, one would be tempted to think that thewhole square in front of the church had been changed into a dark,tumultuous sea, which dashed its raging black waves into all thestreets debouching on the square, and was filling all Paris with itsroar, its swell, its thunder roll. Yes, all Paris was there, inorder to look upon Marie Antoinette, who, at this hour, was not thequeen, but the fair woman; the happy mother who, with the pride ofthe mother of the