Born to the imperial purple, the empress grew up with a notion which she understood, and anchored her power in the love of her people; but Marie Antoinette, from first to last, was a stranger in France, and for many years almost a stranger to her own husband. Scarcely had this woman begun to find happiness in her domestic life, when the shock of a great moral earthquake, which vibrated from its center in France over the whole world, begun to make the earth tremble under her feet. For this woman there never had been an hour of absolute peace. As a wife, she had for years been subjected to deep and bitter humiliation; and her first maternal joy was dashed with a terrible disappointment. The heir which she gave to France was distorted and imperfect as her own happiness had been. Alas! in everything which fills the measure of a mother’s pride, and a queen’s ambition, she had met such sharp disappointment as wrings the heart of a true woman—and this Marie Antoinette undoubtedly was. The queen walked alone, as I have said, so weary, and broken-hearted that, for the moment, she longed to lay down her burden and die. The crown, which her husband had inherited, was so full of thorns that her head was wounded by them. In the throes of a great national convulsion, the very friends for whom she had sacrificed so much, had crept from her one after another, like frightened animals from a burning mansion; and in that regal old palace she found herself more lonely than the meanest woman who clamored for bread in the streets of Paris. The queen thought of these things as she moved along. Being alone, and only human, her eyes filled with bitter tears. She came in sight of the temple, in which Count Mirabeau had sought an interview, which was of momentous importance to her; but it seemed as if even there she had sacrificed her pride for nothing. Either this man had no power to help his struggling king, or he was inert in using it. It seemed to her that no one in France was active but the men and women who most hated their king. “Madame, your highness!” The voice that uttered these words was sweet and timid, like that of a child pleading. “Lady—your highness, I mean!” Marie Antoinette wiped the tears from her eyes, and walked on a step or two, afraid to turn her head lest some inferior might see her weeping, and report her weakness to those who hated her. But the voice went to her heart, and after a struggle she turned. A young girl stood before her, blushing, panting for breath, and with her head bowed down as a beautiful devotee might bend before a picture of the Virgin. “Is there some mistake, or did you wish to speak with me?” said the queen, gently. “I—I came on purpose. I promised to give that which I carry in my bosom only to the queen.” “That which you carry in your bosom! Are you a messenger, then? Are you from Paris?”