ealth of the archdukes and the
archduchesses. This report fully satisfied all the yearnings of maternal
love in the bosom of Maria Theresa; though she still, that she might not
fail in the least degree in motherly affection, endeavored to see them
with her own eyes, and to speak to them with her own lips, as often as
once in a week or ten days. The preceptors and governesses of the royal
household, being thus left very much to themselves, were far more
anxious to gratify the immediate wishes of the children, and thus to
secure their love, than to urge them to efforts for intellectual
improvement. Maria Antoinette, in subsequent life, related many amusing
anecdotes illustrative of the petty artifices by which the scrutiny of
the empress was eluded. The copies which were presented to the queen in
evidence of the progress the children were making in hand-writing were
all traced first in pencil by the governess. The children then followed
with the pen over the penciled lines. Drawings were exhibited,
beautifully executed, to show the skill Maria Antoinette had attained in
that delightful accomplishment, which drawings the pencil of Maria
had not even touched. She was also taught to address strangers of
distinction in short Latin phrases, when she did not understand the
meaning of one single word of the language. Her teacher of Italian, the
Abbe Metastasio, was the only one who was faithful in his duties, and
Maria made very great proficiency in that language. French being the
language of the nursery, Maria necessarily acquired the power of
speaking it with great fluency, though she was quite unable to write it
correctly. In the acquisition of French, her own mother tongue, the
German, was so totally neglected, that, incredible as it may seem, she
actually lost the power either of speaking or of understanding it. In
after years, chagrined at such unutterable folly, she sat down with
great resolution to the study of her own native tongue, and encountered
all the difficulties which would tax the patience of any foreigner in
the attempt. She persevered for about six weeks, and then relinquished
the enterprise in despair. The young princess was extremely fond of
music, and yet she was not taught to play well upon any instrument. This
became subsequently a source of great mortification to her, for she was
ashamed to confess her ignorance of an accomplishment deemed, in the
courts of Europe, so essential to a polished education, and