uthern
provinces.

But now Marie Antoinette suggested to her husband that it was time that he
should extend his travels, which, except when he had gone to Rheims for
his coronation, had never yet carried him beyond Compiegne in one
direction and Fontainebleau in another; and, as of all the departments of
Government, that which was concerned with the marine of the nation
interested her most (we fear that she was secretly looking forward to a
renewal of war with England), she persuaded him to select for the object
of his first visit the fort of Cherbourg in Normandy, where those great
works had been recently begun which have since been constantly augmented
and improved, till they have made it a worthy rival to our own harbors on
the opposite side of the Channel. He was received in all the towns through
which he passed with real joy. The Normans had never seen their king since
Henry IV. had made their province his battle-field; and the queen, who
would gladly have accompanied him, had it not been that such a journey
undertaken by both would have resembled a state procession, and therefore
have been tedious and comparatively useless, exulted in the reception
which he had met with, and began to plan other expeditions of the same
kind for him, feeling assured that his presence would be equally welcomed
in other provinces--at Bourdeaux, at Lyons, or at Toulon. And a series of
such visits would undoubtedly have been calculated to strengthen the
attachment of the people everywhere to the royal authority; which,
already, to some far-seeing judges, seemed likely soon to need all the
re-enforcement which it could obtain in any quarter.

In the summer of 1786 she had a visit from her sister Christine, the
Princess of Teschen, who, with her husband, had been joint governor of
Hungary, and since the death of her uncle, Charles of Lorraine, had been
removed to the Netherlands. She had never seen her sister since her own
marriage, and the month which they spent together at Versailles may be
almost described as the last month of perfect enjoyment that Marie
Antoinette ever knew; for troubles were thickening fast around the
Government, and were being taken wicked advantage of by her enemies, at
the head of whom the Duc d'Orleans now began openly to range himself. He
was a man notorious, as has been already seen, for every kind of infamy;
and though he well knew the disapproval with which Marie Antoinette
regarded his way of life and his