warm and tinted vapor, which bathes objects in full sunlight--the
extreme loveliness which the ideal conveys, and which, by giving it
life, increases its attraction. With all these charms, a soul yearning
to attach itself, a heart easily moved, but yet earnest in desire to fix
itself; a pensive and intelligent smile, with nothing of vacuity in it,
because it felt itself worthy of friendships. Such was Maria Antoinette
as a woman."

When but fourteen years of age she was affianced as the bride of young
Louis, the grandson of Louis XV., and heir apparent to the throne of
France. Neither of the youthful couple had ever seen each other, and
neither of them had any thing to do in forming the connection. It was
deemed expedient by the cabinets of Versailles and Vienna that the two
should be united, in order to promote friendly alliance between France
and Austria. Maria Antoinette had never dreamed even of questioning any
of her mother's arrangements, and consequently she had no temptation to
consider whether she liked or disliked the plan. She had been trained to
the most unhesitating submission to maternal authority. The childish
heart of the mirth-loving princess was doubtless dazzled with the
anticipations of the splendors which awaited her at Versailles and St.
Cloud. But when she bade adieu to the gardens of Schoenbrun, and left
the scenes of her childhood, she entered upon one of the wildest careers
of terror and of suffering which mortal footsteps have ever trod. The
parting from her mother gave her no especial pain, for she had ever
looked up to her as to a superior being, to whom she was bound to render
homage and obedience, rather than as to a mother around whom the
affections of her heart were entwined. But she loved her brothers and
sisters most tenderly. She was extremely attached to the happy home
where her childish heart had basked in all childish pleasures, and many
were the tears she shed when she looked back from the eminences which
surround Vienna upon those haunts to which she was destined never again
to return.

CHAPTER II.

BRIDAL DAYS.

1770-1775

Louis XV.--Prince Louis.--Madame du Barri.--Her dissolute
character.--Children of Louis XV.--Anecdote of Madame du
Barri.--Madame du Barri's beauty.--Her political influence.--Madame
du Barri's pavilion.--The Duke de Brissac.--Madame du Barri's
flight.--She is betrayed.--Condemnation of Madame du Barri.--Her
anguish and despair.--Execution of Mad