Charles Duke Yonge

“ She reproached those who now held sway in France with the barbarity of their proscriptions, with governing by terror and by death, with having overthrown a throne only to erect a scaffold in its place; and she declared that the execution of the queen would exceed in foulness all the other crimes that they had yet committed. She was a foreigner, she was a woman; to put her to death would be a violation of all the laws of hospitality as well as of all the laws of nature. The whole universe was interesting itself in the queen's fate. Woe to the nation which knew neither justice nor generosity! ”

“ As he resumed his seat, the rain cleared away, the sun burst through the clouds; and the queen, as if by a sudden inspiration, brought forward the little dauphin, and, lifting him up in her arms, showed him to the people. Those whom the king's voice could not reach saw the graceful action; and from every side of the plain one universal acclamation burst forth, which seemed to bear out Marie Antoinette's favorite assertion that the people were good at heart, and that it was not without great perseverance in artifice and malignity that they could be excited to disloyalty and treason. ”

“ Had one so high-minded been capable of exulting in the misfortunes of even her worst enemies, Marie Antoinette might have triumphed in the knowledge that the murderers of her husband were already beginning that work of mutual destruction which in little more than a year sent almost every one of them to the same scaffold on which he had perished. The jealousies which from the first had set the Jacobins and Girondins at variance had reached a height at which they could only be extinguished by the annihilation of one party or the other. ”

“ Marie Antoinette declared that "she did not understand what she said; that she had become so completely French that she had forgotten her native language;" and the compliment to their country fairly vanquished them. They received it with shouts of "Bravo," and with loud clapping of their hands. They begged the ribbons and flowers of her bonnet. She took them off with her own hand and distributed them among them; and they divided the spoils with thankful exultation, smiling, waving their hands, and crying out, "Long live Marie Antoinette! Long live our good queen! ”

“ Madame Dugazon, a popular singer of the day, as she uttered the words, bowed toward the royal box, and instantly the whole pit was in a fury. "No mistress for us! no master! Liberty!" The whole house was in an uproar. The king's partisans and adherents replied with loyal cheers, "Vive le roi! Vive la reine!" The pit roared out, "No master! no queen!" and the Jacobins even proceeded to acts of violence toward all who refused to join in their cry. ”

“ Sometimes they even assailed her with direct abuse, calling her the assassin of the people, who in their turn would assassinate her. More than once the whole family had to submit to a personal search, and to empty their pockets, when the officers who made the search carried off whatever they chose to term suspicious, especially their knives and scissors, so that, when at work, the queen and princess were forced to bite off the threads with their teeth. And amidst all this misery no one ever heard Marie Antoinette utter a word to lament her own fate, or to ask pity for herself. ”

“ Accordingly, the very first edict of the new reign announced that neither tax would be imposed. The people felt the kindness which dictated such a relief more than even the relief itself, and repaid it with expressions of gratitude such as no French sovereign had heard for above a century; but Marie Antoinette, with the humility natural to her on such subjects, made light of her own share in the act of benevolence, turning off the compliments which were paid to her with a playful jest, that it was impossible for a queen to affix a purse to her girdle, now that girdles had gone out of fashion. ”

“ The most friendly feeling his misfortunes can ever excite is a contemptuous pity, such as noble and proud minds must find it harder to endure than the utmost virulence of hatred and enmity.
From such a fate, at least, Marie Antoinette was saved. During the remainder of her life her failure did indeed condemn her to a protraction of trial and agony such as no other woman has ever endured; but she always prized honor far above life, and it also opened to her an immortality of glory such as no other woman has ever achieved. ”

“ They besought the queen to dismiss them. "Never!" she replied; and, trusting rather that the example of their self-sacrificing devotion might stimulate those who thus complained, and full of that royal magnanimity which feels that it confers honor on those whom it trusts, and that it has a right to look for the loyalty of its servants even to the death, she added, "They will serve with you, and share your dangers. They will fight with you in the van, in the rear, where you will. They will show you how men can die for their king." ”

“ Vergennes had died a few months before, and the whole kingdom did not supply a single statesman of reputation except Necker. Nor could any choice have for the moment been more universally popular. The citizens illuminated Paris; the mob burned the archbishop in effigy; and the leading merchants and bankers showed their approval in a far more practical way. The funds rose; loans to any amount were freely offered to the Treasury; the national credit revived; as if the solvency or insolvency of the nation depended on a single man, and him a foreigner. ”

“ My dear little girl, we owe this example to the world, and to set such is one of the most essential and most delicate duties of our condition. The more frequently you can perform acts of benevolence and generosity without crippling your means too much, the better; and what would be ostentation and prodigality in another is becoming and necessary for those of our rank. We have no other resources but those of conferring benefits and showing kindness; and this is even more the case with a dauphiness or a queen consort, which I myself have not been. ”

“ No minister in the history of the nation had ever so united large-minded genius with disinterested integrity. He had not accepted office without a full perception of its difficulties. He saw all that had to be done, and applied himself to putting the finances of the nation on a healthy footing, as an indispensable preface to other reforms equally necessary. He easily secured the co-operation of the king and queen, Louis cheerfully adopting the retrenchments which he recommended, though some of them, such as the reduction in the hunting establishment, touched his personal tastes. ”

“ I am going to say something which is very vain; but I do believe that there is not in the whole world any one but the emperor, the son of my dearest mother, who has the happiness of seeing her every day, who could write in such a manner."
There is no trace in these letters of the levity and giddiness of which Mercy so often complains, and which she at times did not deny. On the contrary, they display an earnestness as well as a good sense and an energy which are gracefully set off by the affection for her mother, and the pride in her brother's firmness and address which they also express. ”

“ Even in her earliest years, her careless and occasionally undignified levity was but the joyous outpouring of a pure innocence of heart that, as it meant no evil, suspected none; while it was ever blended with a kindness and courtesy which sprung from a genuine benevolence. As queen, though still hardly beyond girlhood when she ascended the throne, she set herself resolutely to work by her admonitions, and still more effectually by her example, to purify a court of which for centuries the most shameless profligacy had been the rule and boast ”

“ Maria Teresa was an earnest politician, but she was also a mother; and, as being eager above all things for her daughter's happiness, while she entreated Marie Antoinette to study politics, history, and such other subjects as might qualify her to be an intelligent companion of the king, and so far as or whenever he might require it, his chief confidante, she warned her also against ever wishing to rule him. But Mercy was a statesman above every thing, and, feeling secure of being able to guide the queen, he desired to instill into her mind an ambition to govern the king. ”

“ He had shown himself willing to court a base popularity with the mob by heaping uncalled-for insults on the king and queen. But though he had coquetted with the ultra- revolutionists, and allowed them to make a tool of him, he had not nerve for the villainies which it was now clear that they meditated. He had no taste for bloodshed; and, though gifted with but little acuteness, he saw that the success of the Jacobins and Girondins would lead neither to a republic nor to a limited monarchy, but to anarchy ”

“ As each new feature of the display burst upon their eyes, the acclamations of the populace redoubled, and their enthusiasm was kindled to the utmost pitch when Louis and Marie Antoinette descended the stairs, and, arm-in-arm, walked out among the crowd, ostensibly to see the illuminations from the different points which presented the most imposing spectacle; but really, as the citizens perceived, to show their sympathy with the joy of the people by mingling with the multitude, and thus allowing all to approach and even to accost them ”

“ The populace of Paris broke out at once in riots which amounted to insurrection. Thousands of citizens, not all of the lowest class, decorated with green cockades, the color of Necker's livery, and armed with every variety of weapon, paraded the streets, bearing aloft busts of Necker and the Duc d'Orléans, without stopping, in their madness, to consider how incongruous a combination they were presenting. The most ridiculous stories were circulated about the queen: it was affirmed that she had caused the Hall of the Assembly to be undermined, that she might blow it up with gunpowder ”

“ He visited first the courts of the palace, and the Carrousel, and then the gardens, at whose different entrances strong detachments of troops were stationed. When he first appeared he was greeted by one general cheer of "Vive le roi!" But as he passed along the ranks the unanimity and loyalty began to disappear. Even of those regiments which were still true to him the cheers were faint, as if half suppressed by alarm; while many companies mingled shouts for "the nation" with those for himself, and individual soldiers murmured audibly, "Down with the Veto!" ”

“ And there is hardly any thing more strange or more grievous in the history of the nation, hardly any greater proof of that incurable levity which was one great cause of the long series of miseries which soon fell upon it, than that the impressions of gratitude which were so vivid at the moment, and so constantly revived by the queen's untiring benevolence, could yet be so easily effaced by the acts of demagogues and libelers, whom the people thoroughly despised even while suffering themselves to be led by them. ”