For three days in Holy Week Marie Antoinette went into retreat, and when she returned to the palace for Easter she had to give audience to the principal Austrian and Hungarian nobles, and to reply in Latin (probably carefully learnt for the occasion) to an address of the University. Next, the empress held a crowded court, and in the midst of it the French ambassador presented the archduchess with a letter from the dauphin, together with his portrait set in diamonds, which was hung at once round her neck by the countess of Trautmannsdorf, who was in attendance. Then, much to the relief of the bride, they went to the theatre, to see a French play. There only remained one more ceremony to be performed, and this, considering that the archduchess was the youngest of a very large family, was merely formal, and in the presence of a number of witnesses she signed a paper renouncing her claim to any Austrian, Hungarian, or Bohemian territory. This done, a few balls and banquets were given in her honour, and, on April 19, her marriage by proxy took place in the church of the Augustinians, her brother, the archduke Ferdinand, taking the oaths instead of the bridegroom. The papal nuncio, or special envoy, gave the blessing, and little Marie Antoinette was dauphine of France. --------------------- Her progress from Vienna, under the care of the prince of Stahremberg, was a series of _fêtes_. On an island of the Rhine the ladies and gentlemen of her suite awaited her in a magnificent pavilion, and here she took off her Viennese clothes, even her stockings, and put on one of her beautiful trousseau dresses, sent straight from Paris. The prince of Stahremberg delivered her into the charge of the comte de Noailles, and bade her farewell. Then the dauphine entered one of the carriages which had been built for her in Paris. In those days the carriages were worth seeing, for each was a work of art. Those intended for the use of Marie Antoinette were things of wonder and beauty, and had astonished even Paris, where splendid coaches were to be seen all day in the streets. One was covered entirely with crimson velvet on which the emblems of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, had been worked in gold thread, while a wreath of flowers, in gold and enamel, ran along the top; the other was also decorated with flowers in their natural colours, and the body of the carriage was in blue, with pictures representing earth, air, fire, and water, embroidered in silver. At that period carriages cost great sums of money, for the paintings of them were done by good artists, and they were handed on from father to son. Strange to say, many of them escaped the fury of the mob in the French Revolution, and brightened the Paris of the Restoration. But a curious fate was in store for them after all. One night, in the year 1848, a young lady living in Paris with her family, was beckoned out of the room by the old _courrier_.