The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of FranceYonge, Charles Duke
History
The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France
Yonge, Charles Duke
Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
both the nephews; and, as a further compliment, Clostercamp, the name of
the village which was the scene of the brave deed, was added forever to
their family name. The pension is paid to this day. For a time, indeed, it
was suspended while France was under the sway of the rapacious and
insensible murderers of the king who had granted it; but Napoleon restored
it; and, amidst all the changes that have since taken place in the
government of the country, every succeeding ruler has felt it equally
honorable and politic to recognize the eternal claims which patriotic
virtue has on the gratitude of the country.
Marie Antoinette had thus the honor of setting an example to the
Government and the nation. Her heart was getting lighter as the vexations
under which she had so long fretted began to disappear. The late
card-parties were often superseded, throughout the autumn, by concerts on
the terrace at Versailles, where the regimental bands were the performers,
and to which all the well-dressed towns-people were admitted, while the
queen, attended by the princesses and her ladies, and occasionally
escorted by Louis himself, strolled up and down and among the crowd,
diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie
Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting
all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial
as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the
entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he
recorded, not for any unusual sumptuousness of the spectacle, but as
having been the occasion on which she made one more inroad on the
established etiquette of the court in one of its most unaccountable
restrictions: to such royal parties the king's ministers had never been
regarded as admissible, but on this night Marie Antoinette commanded the
company of the Count and Countess de Maurepas. And the innovation was
regarded not only by them as a singular favor, but by all their colleagues
as a marked compliment to the whole body of ministers, and served to
increase their desire to consult her inclinations in every matter in which
she took an interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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