pon 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.

During all these early years of their reign, Versailles was their
favorite and almost constant abode. They were visited occasionally by
monarchs from the other courts of Europe, whom they entertained with the
utmost display of royal grandeur. Bonfires and illuminations turned
night into day in the groves and gardens of those gorgeous palaces.
Thousands were feasted in boundless profusion. Millions of money were
expended in the costly amusements of kings, and queens, and haughty
nobles. The people, by whose toil the revenues of the kingdom were
furnished, looked from a humble distance upon the glittering throng,
gliding through the avenues, charioted in splendor, and now and then
a deep thinker, struggling against poverty and want, would thus
soliloquize: "Why do we thus toil to minister to the