All the palace, all Vienna, was full of excitement. The loyal affection and sentimental lamentation of the inhabitants gave vent to themselves in cries of grief. For the fair young daughter of their empress, in whose coming exaltation they took the utmost pride, who was to do them such honor and service at the court of France, she whose bright face ever beamed with smiles, was, on this 21st of April, 1770, departing on her long journey, and, as many without much prophetic insight might have perceived, her difficult career. When the great coach rolled from the palace courtyard, the girl-bride covered her face with her hands, which yet could not conceal the tears that streamed through her slender fingers. Again and again she turned for a farewell look at the mother, the home, and the early friends, which she was never to see again. The carriage rolled away, and Marie Antoinette Jeanne Josèphe de Lorraine turned her back forever on the Prater and the Danube, Schönbrunn and the moated Laxenburg. Spring-time in sunny France; the birds are singing merrily, the trees are putting forth their leaves, and all nature wears a look of happiness and joy. The Château de Compiègne is filled with guests,—a brilliant assemblage of the _haute noblesse_ composing the court of Louis XV. Upon the terrace stands the king, and with him his three grandsons,—the Dauphin (Louis XVI.), Monsieur le Comte de Provence (Louis XVIII.), and the Comte d’ Artois (Charles X.),—and an eager, anxious crowd surrounds them. All gaze in one direction, for Louis, the Dauphin, awaits his bride,—she who is to be the future queen of France. But little like a bridegroom looks the timid, fat Louis, upon this bright spring morning. He wears an air of resigned indifference, contrasting strongly with the eagerness of his Majesty, King Louis XV., who, notwithstanding his sixty years, makes a far more gallant knight than he. There is a cloud of dust upon the horizon; the _avant-couriers_ arrive; the king and the Dauphin mount their horses, and with a numerous retinue ride forth to meet and welcome the approaching bride. And now the old state travelling carriage is in sight. Putting spurs to his horse, the king leads the way, and, hat in hand, rides up to the side of the cumbrous vehicle. The door flies open, and before him in all the freshness of her fifteen summers is Marie Antoinette Jeanne Josèphe de Lorraine, Archduchess of Austria. The introductions follow, and the young bride and her bashful _fiancée_ are conducted back to Versailles, where, on the 16th of May, 1770, the nuptial benediction is pronounced by the Archbishop of Paris, in the chapel of the palace. Then followed the _fêtes_, and notwithstanding the exchequer was in the usual chronic state of exhaustion, twenty millions of francs—a mighty sum for that period—was spent upon them.