part in her life. Had he borne himself as her lord and master she might

have respected him. Had he shown her the affection of a husband she

might have loved him. But he was neither imposing, nor, on the other

hand, was he alluring. She wrote very frankly about him in a letter to

the Count Orsini:

My tastes are not the same as those of the king, who cares only for

hunting and blacksmith work. You will admit that I should not show to

advantage in a forge. I could not appear there as Vulcan, and the part

of Venus might displease him even more than my tastes.

Thus on the one side is a woman in the first bloom of youth, ardent,

eager--and neglected. On the other side is her husband, whose

sluggishness may be judged by quoting from a diary which he kept during

the month in which he was married. Here is a part of it:

Sunday, 13--Left Versailles. Supper and slept at Compignee, at the house

of M. de Saint-Florentin.

Monday, 14--Interview with Mme. la Dauphine.

Tuesday, 15--Supped at La Muette. Slept at Versailles.

Wednesday, 16--My marriage. Apartment in the gallery. Royal banquet in

the Salle d'Opera.

Thursday, 17--Opera of "Perseus."

Friday, 18--Stag-hunt. Met at La Belle Image. Took one.

Saturday, 19--Dress-ball in the Salle d'Opera. Fireworks.

Thursday, 31--I had an indigestion.

What might have been expected from a young girl placed as this queen was

placed? She was indeed an earlier Eugenie. The first was of royal

blood, the second was almost a plebeian; but each was headstrong,

pleasure-loving, and with no real domestic ties. As Mr. Kipling

expresses it--

The colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady

Are sisters under their skins;

and so the Austrian woman of 1776 and the Spanish woman of 1856 found

amusement in very similar ways. They plunged into a sea of strange

frivolity, such as one finds to-day at the centers of high fashion.

Marie Antoinette bedecked herself with eccentric garments. On her head

she wore a hat styled a "what-is-it," towering many feet in height and

flaunting parti-colored plumes. Worse than all this, she refused to wear

corsets, and at some great functions she would appear in what looked

exactly like a bedroom gown.

She would even neglect the ordinary niceties of life. Her hands were not

well cared for. It was very difficult for the ladies in attendance

to persuade her to brush her teeth with regularity. Again, she would

persist in wearing her frilled and lace-trimmed petticoats long after

their dainty edges had been smirched and blackened.

Yet these things might have been counteracted had she gone no further.

Unfortunately, she did go further. She loved to dress at night like

a shop-girl and venture out into the world of Paris, where she was

frequently followed and recognized. Think of it--the Queen of France,

elbowed in dense crowds and seeking to attract the attention of common

soldiers!

Of course, almost every one put the worst construction upon this,

and after a time upon everything she did. When she took a fancy for

constructing labyrinths and secret passages in the palace, all Paris

vowed that she was planning means by which her various lovers might

enter without observation. The hidden printing-presses of Paris swarmed

with gross lampoons about this reckless girl; and, although there

was little truth in what they said, there was enough to cloud her

reputation. When she fell ill with the measles she was attended in her

sick-chamber by four gentlemen of the court. The king was forbidden to

enter lest he might catch the childish disorder.

The apathy of the king, indeed, drove her into many a folly. After four

years of marriage, as Mrs. Mayne records, he had only reached the point

of giving her a chilly kiss. The fact that she had no children became

a serious matter. Her brother, the Emperor Joseph of Austria, when he

visited Paris, ventured to speak to the king upon the subject. Even

the Austrian ambassador had thrown out hints that the house of Bourbon

needed direct heirs. Louis grunted and said little, but he must have

known how good was the advice.

It was at about this time when there came to the French court a young

Swede named Axel de Fersen, who bore the title of count, but who was

received less for his rank than for his winning manner, his knightly

bearing, and his handsome, sympathetic face. Romantic in spirit, he

threw himself at once into a silent inner worship of Marie Antoinette,

who had for him a singular attraction. Wherever he could meet her they

met. To her growing cynicism this breath of pure yet ardent affection

was very grateful. It came as something fresh and sweet into the

feverish life she led.

Other men had had the audacity to woo her--among them Duc de Lauzun,

whose complicity in the famous affair of the diamond necklace afterward

cast her, though innocent, into ruin; the Duc de Biron; and the Baron

de Besenval, who had obtained much influence over her, which he used for

the most evil purposes. Besenval tainted her mind by persuading her to

read indecent books, in the hope that at last she would become his prey.

But none of these men ever meant to Marie Antoinette what Fersen meant.

Though less than twenty years of age, he maintained the reserve of a

great gentleman, and never forced himself upon her notice. Yet their

first acquaintance had occurred in such a way as to give to it a touch

of intimacy. He had gone to a masked ball, and there had chosen for his

partner a lady whose face was quite concealed. Something drew the two

together. The gaiety of the woman and the chivalry of the man blended

most harmoniously. It was only afterward that he discovered that his

chance partner was the first lady in France. She kept his memory in her

mind; for some time later, when he was at a royal drawing-room and she

heard his voice, she exclaimed:

"Ah, an old acquaintance!"

From this time Fersen was among those who were most intimately favored

by the queen. He had the privilege of attending her private receptions

at the palace of the Trianon, and was a conspicuous figure at the feasts

given in the queen's honor by the Princess de Lamballe, a beautiful girl

whose head was destined afterward to be severed from her body and borne

upon a bloody pike through the streets of Paris. But as yet the deluge

had not arrived and the great and noble still danced upon the brink of a

volcano.

Fersen grew more and more infatuated, nor could he quite conceal his

feelings. The queen, in her turn, was neither frightened nor indignant.

His passion, so profound and yet so respectful, deeply moved her. Then

came a time when the truth was made clear to both of them. Fersen was

near her while she was singing to the harpsichord, and "she was betrayed

by her own music into an avowal which song made easy." She forgot that

she was Queen of France. She only felt that her womanhood had been

starved and slighted, and that here was a noble-minded lover of whom she

could be proud.

Some time after this announcement was officially made of the approaching

accouchement of the queen. It was impossible that malicious tongues

should be silent. The king's brother, the Comte de Provence, who hated

the queen, just as the Bonapartes afterward hated Josephine, did his

best to besmirch her reputation. He had, indeed, the extraordinary

insolence to do so at a time when one would suppose that the vilest

of men would remain silent. The child proved to be a princess, and she

afterward received the title of Duchesse d'Angouleme. The King of Spain

asked to be her godfather at the christening, which was to be held in

the cathedral of Notre Dame. The Spanish king was not present in person,

but asked the Comte de Provence to act as his proxy.

On the appointed day the royal party proceeded to the cathedral, and the

Comte de Provence presented the little child at the baptismal font. The

grand almoner, who presided, asked;

"What name shall be given to this child?"

The Comte de Provence answered in a sneering tone:

"Oh, we don't begin with that. The first thing to find out is who the

father and the mother are!"

These words, spoken at such a place and such a time, and with a strongly

sardonic ring, set all Paris gossiping. It was a thinly veiled innuendo

that the father of the child was not the King of France. Those about the

court immediately began to look at Fersen with significant smiles. The

queen would gladly have kept him near her; but Fersen cared even more

for her good name than for his love of her. It would have been so

easy to remain in the full enjoyment of his conquest; but he was too

chivalrous for that, or, rather, he knew that the various ambassadors

in Paris had told their respective governments of the rising scandal.

In fact, the following secret despatch was sent to the King of Sweden by

his envoy:

I must confide to your majesty that the young Count Fersen has been so

well received by the queen that various persons have taken it amiss. I

own that I am sure that she has a liking for him. I have seen proofs of

it too certain to be doubted. During the last few days the queen has not

taken her eyes off him, and as she gazed they were full of tears. I beg

your majesty to keep their secret to yourself.

The queen wept because Fersen had resolved to leave her lest she should

be exposed to further gossip. If he left her without any apparent

reason, the gossip would only be the more intense. Therefore he decided

to join the French troops who were going to America to fight under

Lafayette. A brilliant but dissolute duchess taunted him when the news

became known.

"How is this?" said she. "Do you forsake your conquest?"

But, "lying like a gentleman," Fersen answered, quietly:

"Had I made a conquest I should not forsake it. I go away free, and,

unfortunately, without leaving any regret."

Nothing could have been more chivalrous than the pains which Fersen took

to shield the reputation of the queen. He even allowed it to be supposed

that he was planning a marriage with a rich young Swedish woman who

had been naturalized in England. As a matter of fact, he departed for

America, and not very long afterward the young woman in question married

an Englishman.

Fersen served in America for a time, returning, however, at the end of

three years. He was one of the original Cincinnati, being admitted

to the order by Washington himself. When he returned to France he was

received with high honors and was made colonel of the royal Swedish

regiment.

The dangers threatening Louis and his court, which were now gigantic and

appalling, forbade him to forsake the queen. By her side he did what

he could to check the revolution; and, failing this, he helped her to

maintain an imperial dignity of manner which she might otherwise have

lacked. He faced the bellowing mob which surrounded the Tuileries.

Lafayette tried to make the National Guard obey his orders, but he was

jeered at for his pains. Violent epithets were hurled at the king. The

least insulting name which they could give him was "a fat pig." As for

the queen, the most filthy phrases were showered upon her by the men,

and even more so by the women, who swarmed out of the slums and sought

her life.

At last, in 1791, it was decided that the king and the queen and their

children, of whom they now had three, should endeavor to escape from

Paris. Fersen planned their flight, but it proved to be a failure. Every

one remembers how they were discovered and halted at Varennes. The royal

party was escorted back to Paris by the mob, which chanted with insolent

additions:

"We've brought back the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy!

Now we shall have bread!"

Against the savage fury which soon animated the French a foreigner like

Fersen could do very little; but he seems to have endeavored, night and

day, to serve the woman whom he loved. His efforts have been described

by Grandat; but they were of no avail. The king and queen were

practically made prisoners. Their eldest son died. They went through

horrors that were stimulated by the wretch Hebert, at the head of his

so-called Madmen (Enrages). The king was executed in January, 1792. The

queen dragged out a brief existence in a prison where she was for ever

under the eyes of human brutes, who guarded her and watched her and

jeered at her at times when even men would be sensitive. Then, at last,

she mounted the scaffold, and her head, with its shining hair, fell into

the bloody basket.

Marie Antoinette shows many contradictions in her character. As a young

girl she was petulant and silly and almost unseemly in her actions. As

a queen, with waning power, she took on a dignity which recalled the

dignity of her imperial mother. At first a flirt, she fell deeply in

love when she met a man who was worthy of that love. She lived for most