Maria Antoinette: Makers of HistoryAbbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
History
Maria Antoinette: Makers of History
Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)
Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
One morning Madame Campan entered the queen's chamber when she was in
bed. Several letters were lying upon the bed by her side, and she was
weeping as though her heart would break. She immediately exclaimed,
covering her swollen eyes with her hands, "Oh! I wish that I were dead!
I wish that I were dead! The wretches! the monsters! what have I done
that they should treat me thus! it would be better to kill me at once."
Then, throwing her arms around the neck of Madame Campan, she burst more
passionately into tears. All attempts to console her were unavailing.
Neither was she willing to confide the cause of her heart-rending grief.
After some time she regained her usual serenity, and said, with an
attempted smile, "I know that I have made you very uncomfortable this
morning, and I must set your poor heart at ease. You must have seen, on
some fine summer's day, a black cloud suddenly appear, and threaten to
pour down upon the country and lay it in waste. The lightest wind drives
it away, and the blue sky and serene weather are restored. This is just
the image of what has happened to me this morning."
Notwithstanding, however, these efforts of the malignant, the king
became daily more and more strongly attached to the queen. In the
embarrassments which were gathering around him, he felt the support
of her energetic mind, and looked to her counsel with continually
increasing confidence. It was about nine years after their marriage when
their first child was born. Three others were subsequently added to
their family. Two, however, of the children, a son and a daughter, died
in early childhood, leaving two others, Maria Theresa and Louis Charles,
to share and to magnify those woes which subsequently overwhelmed the
whole royal family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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