burbs, and to have attacked people in the
streets. Food of every kind became scarce, and of the poorer classes many
were believed to have died of actual starvation. Necker, as head of the
Government, made energetic and judicious efforts to relieve the universal
distress, forming magazines in different districts, facilitating the means
of transport, finding employment for vast numbers of laborers and
artisans, and purchasing large quantities of grain in foreign countries;
and, not only were Louis and Marie Antoinette conspicuous for the
unstinting liberality with which they devoted their own funds to the
supply of the necessities of the destitute, but the queen, in many cases
of unusual or pressing suffering that were reported to her in Versailles
and the neighboring villages, sent trustworthy persons to investigate
them, and in numerous instances went herself to the cottages, making
personal inquiries into the condition of the occupants, and showing not
only a feeling heart, but a considerate and active kindness, which doubled
the value of her benefactions by the gracious, thoughtful manner in which
they were bestowed.

She would willingly have done the good she did in secret, partly from her
constant feeling that charity was not charity if it were boasted of,
partly from a fear that those ready to misconstrue all her acts would find
pretexts for evil and calumny even in her bounty. One of her good deeds
struck Necker as of so remarkable a character that he pressed her to allow
him to make it known. "Be sure, on the contrary," she replied, "that you
never mention it. What good could it do? they would not believe you;[9]"
but in this she was mistaken. Her charities were too widely spread to
escape the knowledge even of those who did not profit by them; and they
had their reward, though it was but a short-lived one. Though the majority
of her acts of personal kindness were performed in Versailles rather than
in Paris, the Parisians were as vehement in their gratitude as the
Versaillese; and it found a somewhat fantastic vent in the erection of
pyramids and obelisks of snow in different quarters of the city, all
bearing inscriptions testifying the citizens' sense of her benevolence.
One, which far exceeded all its fellows in size--the chief beauty of works
of that sort--since it was fifteen feet high, and each of the four faces
was twelve feet wide at the base, was decorated with a medallion of the
royal pair, and bore a po