Marie Antoinette and Her Son

by L. Mühlbach

CHAPTER III.

TRIANON

Fly, ye steeds, fly! Bear the Queen of France away from the stiff, proud Versailles; from the palaces of kings, where every thing breathes of exaltation, greatness, and unapproachableness; bear her to little, simple, pretty Trianon, to the dream of paradise, where all is innocence, simplicity, and peace; where the queen may be a woman, and a happy one, too, and where Marie Antoinette has the right to banish etiquette, and live in accordance with her inclinations, wishes, and humors.

Yes, truly, the fiery steeds have transformed themselves into birds; they cut the air, they scarcely touch the ground, and hardly can the driver restrain them when they reach the fence which separates the garden of Trianon from Versailles.

Light as a gazelle, happy as a young girl that knows nothing of the cares and burdens of life, Marie Antoinette sprang out of the carriage before the chamberlain had time to open the gate with its double wings, to let the queen pass in as a queen ought. Laughing, she glided through the little side gate, which sufficed for the more unpretending visitor of Trianon, and took the arm of her friend the Duchess de Polignac, in order to turn with her into one of the side alleys. But, before doing so, she turned to the chamberlain, who, standing in a respectful attitude, was awaiting the commands of his mistress.

"Weber," said she to him, in the pleasant Austrian dialect, the language of her early home" Weber, there is no need for you to follow us. The day is yours. You are free, as I am too. Meanwhile, if yon meet his majesty, tell him that I have gone to the small palace, and that, if it pleases his majesty, he may await me in my little village at the mill.

"And now, come, my Julia," said she, turning to the duchess, and drawing her forward with gentle violence, " now let us be merry and happy. I am no longer a queen, God be thanked! I am neither more nor less than anybody else. That is the reason I was so well pleased to come through the small door just now. Through a narrow gate alone we can enter paradise, and I am entering paradise now. Oh, do you not see, my friend, that the trees, the flowers, the bushes, every thing here is free from the dust of earth; that even the heaven has another color, and looks down upon me brilliant and blue, like the eye of God?"

"It is just," answered the Duchess de Polignac, "because you are seeing every thing with other eyes, your majesty."

"Your majesty!" cried Marie Antoinette. "You love me no longer; your heart is estranged from me, since you address me with this cold title. In Versailles, you had a valid plea; but here, Julia, what can you offer in justification? The flowers are not listeners, the bushes have not ears, like the walls of Versailles, to spy out our privacy."

"I say nothing for my exculpation," answered the duchess, throwing her arm with a playful movement around the neck of the queen, and imprinting a kiss upon the lofty brow of Marie Antoinette. "I only ask your pardon, and promise that I will be obedient and not disturb my friend's dream of paradise all day long by an ill-timed word. Now will you forgive me, Marie?"

"With all my soul, Julia," answered the queen, nodding to her in a friendly way. "And now, Julia, as we have a happy vacation day before us, we will enjoy it like two young girls who are celebrating the birthday of their grandmother after escaping from a boarding school. Let us see which of us is the swiftest of foot. We will make a wager on it. See, there gleams our little house out from the shrubbery; let us see which of us gets there first."

"Without stopping once in the run?" asked the duchess, amazed.

"I make no conditions; I only say, let us see who gets there first. If you win, Julia, I will give you the privilege of nominating a man to have the first place in my Swiss guards, and you may select the protege in whose behalf you were pleading yesterday. Come, let us run. One!—"

"No, Marie," interrupted the duchess. "Supposing that you are the first, what shall I give you?"

"A kiss—a hearty kiss—Julia. Now, forward! One, two, three!"

And, speaking these words in merry accents, Marie Antoinette sprang forward along the narrow walk. The round straw hat which covered her head was tossed up on both sides; the blue ribbons fluttered in the wind; the white dress puffed up; and the grand chamberlain of the queen and Madame Adelaide would have been horrified if they could have seen the queen flying along like a girl escaped from the boarding-school.

But she, she never thought of there being any thing improper in the run; she looked forward to the goal with laughing glances, as the white house emerged more and more from the verdure by which it was surrounded, and then sideways at her friend, who had not been able to gain a single step upon her.

"Forward, forward!" shouted the queen; "I will and I must win, for the prize is a kiss from my Julia." And with renewed speed the queen dashed along. The lane opened and terminated in a square in front of the palace. The queen stopped in her course, and turned round to see her friend, who had been left far behind her.

As soon as the duchess saw it she tried to quicken her steps, and began to run again, but Marie Antoinette motioned with her hand, and went rapidly back to meet her.

"You shall not make any more effort, Julia," said she. "I have won, and you cannot bring my victory into question."

"And I do not wish to," answered the duchess, with a merry look of defiance on her gentle features. "I really did not wish to win, for it would have seemed as if I had to win what I want on the turn of a merry game. You have done wrong, Marie Antoinette. You want me to forget here in Trianon that you are the Queen of France. But you yourself do not forget it. Only the queen can propose such a prize as you have set, and only the queen can ask so insignificant a boon on the other side. You have made it impossible for me to win, for you know well that I am not selfish."

"I know it, and that is just the reason why I love you so dearly, Julia. I have done wrong," she went on to say with her gentle, sweet voice. "I see it, and I beg your forgiveness. Give me now as a proof that you do forgive me, give me the prize which I have won—a kiss, Julia, a kiss."

"Not here," answered the duchess. "O, no, not here, Marie. Do not you see that the doors of the saloons are open, and that your company are all assembled. They would all envy me; they would all be jealous if they were to see the preference which you show for me."

"Let them be jealous, let them envy you," cried the queen; "the whole world shall know that Julia de Polignac is my best-loved friend, that next to husband and children, I love no one so well as her."

With gentle violence the queen threw both her arms around the neck of the duchess, and kissed her passionately.

"Did you notice," said the Baron de Besenval to Lord Adhemar, with whom he was playing a game of backgammon in the saloon, "did you notice the tableau that the queen is presenting, taking for her theme a group representing Friendship?"

"I wish it were in my power to reproduce this wonderful group in marble," answered Lord Adhemar, laughing. "It would be a companion piece to Orestes and Pylades."

"But which," asked the Duchess de Guemene, looking up from her embroidery, "which would be the companion of Orestes, pursued of Furies, surrounded by serpents?"

"That is the queen," answered the Count de Vaudreuil, who was sitting at the piano and practising a new piece of music. "The queen is the womanly Orestes: the Furies are the three royal aunts; and the serpents—pardon me, ladies—are, with the exception of yourselves, most all the ladies of Paris."

"You are malicious, count," cried Madame de Morsan, "and were we by any chance not here, you would reckon us among the serpents."

"If I should do so," said Count Vaudreuil, laughing, "I should only wish to take the apple from you, in order to be driven out of paradise with you. But still! the queen is coming."

Yes, just then the queen entered the apartment. Her cheeks were glowing red by reason of her run, her bosom heaved violently with her hurried, agitated breathing. Her hat had fallen upon one side, and the dark blond hair was thrown about in wild confusion.

It was not the queen who entered the saloon, it was only Marie Antoinette, the simple, young woman, greeting her friends with brilliant glances and lively nods. It had been made a rule with her, that when she entered, no one should rise, nor leave the embroidery, or piano-playing, or any other occupation.

The women remained at their work, Lords Besenval and Adhemar went on playing their game of backgammon, and only the Count de Vaudreuil rose from his place at the approach of the queen.

"What have you been playing, count?" asked Marie Antoinette. "I beg your pardon, if I leave your question unanswered," replied the count, with a gentle inclination of the head. "Your majesty has such a fine ear, that you must doubtless recognize the composer in the music. It is an entirely new composition, and I have taken the license of arranging it for four hands. If your majesty would perhaps be inclined-"

"Come," interrupted the queen, "let us try it at once."

Quickly, and with feverish impatience, she drew her black netted gloves from her delicate white hands, and at once took her place next to the count, on the seat already prepared for her.

"Will not the music be too difficult for me to play?" asked she, timidly.

"Nothing is too difficult for the Queen of France."

"But there is a great deal that is too difficult for the dilettante, Marie Antoinette," sighed the queen. "Meanwhile, we will begin and try it."

And with great facility and lightness of touch, the queen began to play the base of the piece which had been arranged by the Count de Vaudreuil for four hands. But the longer she played, the more the laughter and the unrestrained gayety disappeared from the features of the queen. Her noble countenance assumed an expression of deep earnestness, her eye kindled with feeling, and the cheeks which before had become purple-red with the exercise of playing, now paled with deep inward emotion.

All at once, in the very midst of the grand and impassioned strains, Marie Antoinette stopped, and, under the strength of her feeling, rose from her seat.

"Only Gluck can have written this!" cried she. "This is the music, the divine music of my exalted master, my great teacher, Chevalier Gluck."

"You are right; your majesty is a great musician," cried Lord
Vaudreuil, in amazement, "the ideal pupil of the genial maestro.
Yes, this music is Gluck's. It is the overture to his new opera of
'Alcestes,' which he sent me from Venice to submit to your majesty.
These tones shall speak for the master, and entreat for him the
protection of the queen."

"You have not addressed the queen, but my own heart," said Marie Antoinette, with gentle, deeply moved voice. "It was a greeting from my home, a greeting from my teacher, who is at the same time the greatest composer of Europe. Oh, I am proud of calling myself his pupil. But Gluck needs no protection; it is much more we who need the protection which he affords us in giving us the works of his genius. I thank you, count," continued Marie Antoinette, turning to Vaudreuil with a pleasant smile.

"This is a great pleasure which you have prepared for me. But knowing, as I now do, that this is Gluck's music, I do not dare to play another note; for, to injure a note of his writing, seems to me like treason against the crown. I will practise this piece, and then some day we will play it to the whole court. And now, my honored guests, if it pleases you, we go to meet the king. Gentlemen, let each one choose his lady, for we do not want to go in state procession, but by different paths."

All the gentlemen present rushed toward the queen, each desirous to have the honor of waiting upon her. Marie Antoinette thanked them all with a pleasant smile, and took the arm of the eldest gentleman there, the Baron de Besenval.

"Come, baron," said she, "I know a new path, which none of these gentry have learned, and I am sure that we shall be the first to reach the place where the king is."

Resting on the arm of the baron, she left the saloon, and passed out of the door opposite, upon the little terrace leading to the well- shaded park.

"We will go through the English garden. I have had them open a path through the thicket, which will lead us directly to our goal; while the others will all have to go through the Italian garden, and so make a circuit. But look, my lord, somebody is coming there—who is it?"

And the queen pointed to the tall, slim figure of a man who was just then striding along the terrace.

"Madame," answered the baron, "it is the Duke de Fronac."

"Alas!" murmured Marie Antoinette, "he is coming to lay new burdens upon us, and to put us in the way of meeting more disagreeable things."

"Would it be your wish that I should dismiss him? Do you give me power to tell him that you extend no audience to him here?"

"Oh! do not do so," sighed Marie Antoinette. "He, too, is one of my enemies, and we must proceed much more tenderly with our dear enemies than with our friends."

Just then the Duke de Fronac ascended the last terrace, and approached the queen with repeated bows, which she reciprocated with an earnest look and a gentle inclination of the head.

"Well, duke, is it I with whom the chief manager of the royal theatres wishes to speak?"

"Madame," answered the duke, "I am come to beg an audience of your majesty."

"You have it; and it is, as you see, a very imposing audience, for we stand in the throne room of God, and the canopy of Heaven arches over us. Now say, duke, what brings you to me?"

"Your majesty, I am come to file an accusation!"

"And of course against me?" asked the queen, with a haughty smile. The duke pretended not to hear the question, and went on: "I am come to bring a charge and to claim my rights. His majesty has had the grace to appoint me manager-in-chief of all the royal theatres, and to give me their supreme control."

"Well, what has that to do with me?" asked the queen in her coldest way. " You have then your duties assigned you, to he rightfully fulfilled, and to keep your theatres in order, as if they were troops under your care."

"But, your majesty, there is a theatre which seeks to free itself from my direction. And by virtue of my office and my trust I must stringently urge you that this new theatre royal be delivered into my charge."

"I do not understand you," said the queen, coolly. "Of what new theatre are you speaking, and where is it?"

"Your majesty, it is here in Trianon. Here operettas, comedies, and vaudevilles are played. The stage is furnished as all stages are; it is a permanent stage, and I can therefore ask that it be given over into my charge, for, I repeat it again, the king has appointed me director of all the collective theatres royal."

"But, duke," answered the queen with a somewhat more pliant tone, "you forget one thing, and that is, that the theatre in Trianon does not belong to the theatres of his majesty. It is my stage, and Trianon is my realm. Have you not read on the placards, which are at the entrance of Trianon, that it is the queen who gives laws here? Do you not know that the king has given me this bit of ground that I may enjoy my freedom here, and have a place where the Queen of France may have a will of her own?"

"Your majesty," answered the duke with an expression of the profoundest deference, "I beg your pardon. I did not suppose that there was a place in France where the king is not the lord paramount, and where his commands are not imperative."

"You see, then, that you are mistaken. Here in Trianon I am king, and my commands are binding."

"That does not prevent, your majesty, the commands of the king having equal force," replied the duke, with vehemence. "And even if the Queen of France disowns these laws, yet others do not dare take the risk of following the example of the queen. For they remain, wherever they are, the subjects of the king. So even here in Trianon I am still the obedient subject of his majesty, and his commands and my duties are bound to be respected by me."

"My lord duke," cried the queen with fresh impatience, "you are free never to come to Trianon. I give you my full permission to that end, and thus you will be relieved from the possibility of ever coming into collision with your ever-delicate conscience and the commands of the king."

"But, your majesty, there is a theatre in Trianon!"

"Not this indefinite phrase, duke; there is a theatre in Trianon, but I the queen, the princess of the royal family, and the guests I invite, support a theatre in Trianon. Let me say this once for all: you cannot have the direction where we are the actors. Besides, I have had occasion several times to give you my views respecting Trianon. I have no court here. I live here as a private person. I am here but a land owner, and the pleasures and enjoyments which I provide here for myself and my friends shall never be supervised by any one but myself alone." [Footnote: The very words of the queen.— See Goncourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette">[

"Your majesty," said the duke, with a cold smile, "it is no single person that supervises you; it is public opinion, and I think that this will speak on my side."

The duke bowed, and, without waiting for a sign from the queen to withdraw, he turned around and began to descend the terrace.

"He is a shameless man!" muttered the queen, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, as she followed him with her looks.

"He is ambitious," whispered Besenval; "he implores your majesty in this way, and risks his life and his office, in the hope of being received into the court society."

"No, no," answered Marie Antoinette, eagerly; "there is nothing in me that attracts him. The king's aunts have set him against me, and this is a new way which their tender care has conjured up to irritate me, and make me sick.

Yet let us leave this, baron. Let us forget this folly, and only remember that we are in Trianon. See, we are now entering my dear English garden. Oh, look around you, baron, and then tell me is it not beautiful here, and have I not reason to be proud of what I have called here into being?"

While thus speaking, the queen advanced with eager, flying steps to the exquisite beds of flowers which beautifully variegated the surface of the English garden.

It was in very truth the creation of the queen, this English garden, and it formed a striking contrast to the solemn, stately hedges, the straight alleys, the regular flower beds, the carefully walled pools and brooks, which were habitual in the gardens of Versailles and Trianon. In the English garden every thing was cosy and natural. The waters foamed here, and there they gathered themselves together and stood still; here and there were plants which grew just where the wind had scattered the seed. Hundreds of the finest trees—willows, American oaks, acacias, firs—threw their shade abroad, and wrought a rich diversity in the colors of the foliage. The soil here rose into gentle hillocks, and there sank in depressions and natural gorges. All things seemed without order or system, and where art had done its work, there seemed to be the mere hand of free, unfettered Nature.

The farther the queen advanced with her companion into the garden, the more glowing became her countenance, and the more her eyes beamed with their accustomed fire.

"Is it not beautiful here?" asked she, of the baron, who was walking silently by her side.

"It is beautiful wherever your majesty is," answered he, with an almost too tender tone. But the queen did not notice it. Her heart was filled with an artless joy; she listened with suspended breath to the trilling song of the birds, warbling their glad hymns of praise out from the thickets of verdure. How could she have any thought of the idle suggestions of the voice of the baron, who had been chosen as her companion because of his forty-five years, and of his hair being tinged with gray?

"It seems to me, baron," she said, with a charming laugh, while looking at a bird which, its song just ended, soared from the bushes to the heavens—" it seems to me as if Nature wanted to send me a greeting, and deputed this bird to bring it to me. Ah," she went on to say, with quickly clouded brow, "it is really needful that I should at times hear the friendly notes and the sweet melodies of such a genuine welcome. I have suffered a great deal today, baron, and the welcome of this bird of Trianon was the balm of many a wound that I have received since yesterday."

"Your majesty was in Paris?" asked Besenval, hesitatingly, and with a searching glance of his cunning, dark eyes, directed to the sad countenance of Marie Antoinette.

"I was in Paris," answered she, with a flush of joy; "and the good Parisians welcomed the wife of the king and the mother of the children of France with a storm of enthusiasm."

"No, madame," replied the baron, reddening, "they welcomed with a storm of enthusiasm the most beautiful lady of France, the adored queen, the mother of all poor and suffering ones."

"And yet there was a dissonant note which mingled with all these jubilee tones," said the queen, thoughtfully. "While all were shouting, there came one voice which sounded to my ear like the song of the bird of misfortune. Believe me, Besenval, every thing is not as it ought to be. There is something in the air which fills me with anxiety and fear. I cannot drive it away; I feel that the sword of Damocles is hanging over my head, and that my hands are too weak to remove it."

"A woe to the traitors who have dared to raise the sword of Damocles over the head of the queen!" cried the baron, furiously.

"Woe to them, but woe to me too!" replied the queen, with gentle sadness. "I have this morning had a stormy interview with Madame Adelaide. It appears that my enemies have concocted a new way of attacking me, and Madame Adelaide was the herald to announce the beginning of the tournament."

"Did she venture to bring any accusations against your majesty?" asked Besenval. The queen replying in the affirmative with a nod, he went on. "But what can they say? Whence do they draw the poisoned arrows to wound the noblest and truest of hearts?"

"They draw them from their jealousy, from their hatred against the house of Austria, from the rage with which they look upon the manner in which the king has bestowed his love. 'What can they say?' They make out of little things monstrous crimes. They let a pebble grow into a great rock, with which they strive to smite me down. Oh, my friend, I have suffered a great deal to-day, and, in order to tell you this, I chose you as my companion. I dare not complain before the king," Marie Antoinette went on, while two tears rolled slowly down her cheeks, "for I will not be the means of opening a breach in the family, and the king would cause them to feel his wrath who have drawn tears from the eyes of his wife. But you are my friend, Besenval, and I confide in your friendship and in your honor. Now, tell me, you who know the world, and who are my senior in experience of life, tell me whether I do wrong to live as I do. Are the king's aunts right in charging it upon me as a crime, that I take part in the simple joys of life, that I take delight in my youth and am happy? Is the Count de Provence right in charging me, as with a crime, that I am the chief counsellor of the king, and that I venture to give him my views regarding political matters? Am I really condemned to stand at an unapproachable distance from the people and the court, like a beautiful statue? Is it denied to me to have feeling, to love and to hate, like everybody else? Is the Queen of France nothing but the sacrificial lamb which the dumb idol etiquette carries in its leaden arms, and crushes by slowly pressing it to itself? Tell me, Besenval; speak to me like an honorable and upright man, and remember that God is above us and hears our words!"

"May God be my witness," said Besenval, solemnly. "Nothing lies nearer my heart than that your majesty hear me. For my life, my happiness, and my misery, all lie wrapped up in the heart of your majesty. No, I answer—no; the aunts of the king, the old princesses, look with the basilisk eye of envy from a false point. They have lived at the court of their father; they have seen Vice put on the trappings of Virtue; they have seen Shamelessness array itself in the garments of Innocence, and they no longer retain their faith in Virtue or Innocence. The purity of the queen appears to them to be a studied coquetry, her unconstrained cheerfulness to be culpable frivolity. No, the Count de Provence is not right in bringing the charge against the king that it is wrong in him to love his wife with the intensity and self surrender with which a citizen loves the wife whom he has himself selected. He is not right in alleging it as an accusation against you, that you are the counsellor of the king, and that you seek to control political action. Your whole offence lies in the fact that your political views are different from his, and that, through the influence which you have gained over the heart of the king, his aunts are driven into the background. Your majesty is an Austrian, a friend of the Duke de Choiseul. That is your whole offence. Now you would not be less blameworthy in the eyes of these enemies were you to live in exact conformity with the etiquette books of the Queen of France, covered with the dust of a hundred years. Your majesty would therefore do yourself and the whole court an injury were you to allow your youth, your beauty, and your innocence, to be subjected to these old laws. It were folly to condemn yourself to ennui and solitude. Does not the Queen of France enjoy a right which the meanest of her subjects possesses, of collecting her own chosen friends around her and taking her pleasure with them. We live, I know, in an age of reckless acts; but may there not be some recklessness in dealing with the follies of etiquette? They bring it as a charge against your majesty that you adjure the great court circles, and the stiff set with which the royal family of France used to martyr itself. They say that by giving up ceremony you are undermining the respect which the people ought to cherish toward royalty. But would it not be laughable to think that the obedience of the people depends upon the number of the hours which a royal family may spend in the society of tedious and wearisome courtiers? No, my queen, do not listen to the hiss of the hostile serpents which surround you. Go, courageously, your own way—the way of innocence, guilelessness, and love."

"I thank you—oh, I thank you!" cried Marie Antoinette. "You have lifted heavy doubts from my heart and strengthened my courage. I thank you!"

And, with beaming eyes and a sweet smile, she extended both her hands to the baron.

He pressed them tightly within his own, and, sinking upon his knee, drew the royal hands with a glow to his lips.

"Oh, my queen, my mistress!" he cried, passionately, "behold at your feet your most faithful servant, your most devoted slave. Receive from me the oath of my eternal devotion and love. You have honored me with your confidence, you have called me your friend. But my soul and my heart glow for another name. Speak the word, Marie Antoinette, the word—"

The queen drew back, and the paleness of death spread over her cheeks. She had at the outset listened with amazement, then with horror and indignation, to the insolent words of the baron, and gradually her gentle features assumed a fierce and disdainful expression.

"My lord," she said, with the noble dignity of a queen, "I told you before that God is above us, and hears our words. You have spoken, wantonly, and God has heard you. To Him I leave the punishment of your wantonness. Stand up, my lord! the king shall know nothing of an insult which would have brought you into ignominy with him forever. But if you ever, by a glance or a gesture, recall this both wanton and ridiculous scene, the king shall hear all from me!"

And while the queen pointed, with a proud and dignified gesture, to the place which was their goal, she said, with commanding tone:

"Go before, my lord; I will follow you alone." The Baron de Besenval, the experienced courtier, the practised man of the world, was undergoing what was new to him; he felt himself perplexed, ashamed, and no longer master of his words. He had risen from his knees, and, after making a stiff obeisance to the queen, he turned and went with a swift step and crestfallen look along the path which the queen had indicated.

Marie Antoinette followed him with her eyes so long as he remained in sight, then looked with a long, sad glance around her.

"And so I am alone again," she whispered, "and poorer by one illusion more. Ah, and is it then true that there is no friendship for me; must every friend be an envier or else a lover? Even this man, whom I honored with my confidence, toward whom I cherished the feeling of a pupil toward a teacher, even this man has dared to insult me! Ah, must my heart encounter a new wonder every day, and must my happiness be purchased with so many pains?"

And with a deep cry of pain the queen drew her hands to her face, and wept bitterly. All around was still. Only here and there were heard the songs of the birds in the bushes, light and dreamy; while the trees, swayed by the wind, gently whispered, as if they wanted to quiet the grief of the queen, and dry up those tears which fell upon the flowers.

All at once, after a short pause, the queen let her hands fall again, and raised her head with proud and defiant energy.

"Away with tears!" she said. "What would my friends say were they to see me? What buzzing and whispering would there be, were they to see that the gentle queen, the always happy and careless Marie Antoinette, had shed tears? Oh, my God!" she cried, raising her large eyes to heaven, "I have today paid interest enough for my happiness; preserve for me at least the capital, and I will cheerfully pay the world the highest rates, such as only a miserly usurer can desire."

And with a proud spirit, and a lofty carriage, the queen strode forward along the path. The bushes began to let the light through, and the queen emerged from the English garden into the small plain, in whose midst Marie Antoinette had erected her Arcadia, her dream of paradise. The queen stood still, and with a countenance which quickly kindled with joy, and with eyes which beamed with pleasure, looked at the lovely view which had been called into being by the skill of her architect, Hubert Robert.

And the queen might well rejoice in this creation, this poetic idyl, which arose out of the splendor of palaces like a violet in the sand, and among the variegated tropical flowers which adorn the table of a king. Closely adjoining each other were little houses like those in which peasants live, the peasant women being the proud ladies of the royal court. A little brook babbled behind the houses, and turned with its foaming torrent the white wheel of the mill which was at the extremity of the village. Near the mill, farther on, stood entirely alone a little peasant's house, especially tasteful and elegant. It was surrounded by flower beds, vineyards, and laurel paths. The roof was covered with straw; the little panes were held by leads to the sashes. It was the home of Marie Antoinette. The queen herself made the drawings, and wrought out the plan. It was her choice that it should be small, simple, and modest; that it should have not the slightest appearance of newness, and that rents and fissures should be represented on the wall by artificial contrivances, so as to give the house an old look, and an appearance of having been injured. She had little thought how speedily time could demolish the simple pastimes of a queen. Close by stood a still smaller house, known as the milk room. It was close to the brook. And when Marie Antoinette, with her peasant women, had milked the cows, they bore the milk through the village in white buckets, with silver handles, to the milk room, where it was poured out into pretty, white pans standing on tables of white marble. On the other side of the road was the house of the chief magistrate of the village, and close by lived the schoolmaster.

Marie Antoinette had had a care for everything. There were bins to preserve the new crops in, and before the hay scaffoldings were ladders leading up to the fragrant hay. "Ah, the world is beautiful," said Marie Antoinette, surveying her creation with a cheerful look. "I will enjoy the pleasant hours, and be happy here."

She walked rapidly forward, casting friendly glances up to the houses to see whether the peasants had not hid them-selves within, and were waiting for her. But all was still, and not one of the inhabitants peeped out from a single window. All at once the stillness was broken by a loud clattering sound. The white wheel of the mill began to turn, and at the door appeared the corpulent form of the miller in his white garments, with his smiling, meal powdered face, and with the white cap upon his head.

The queen uttered an exclamation of delight, and ran with quick steps toward the mill. But before she could reach it, the door of the official's house opposite opened, and the mayor, in his black costume, and with the broad white ribbon around his neck; the Spanish cane, with a gold knob, in his hand, and wearing his black, three-cornered hat, issued from the dwelling. He advanced directly to Marie Antoinette, and resting his hands upon his sides and assuming a threatening mien, placed himself in front of her.

"We are very much dissatisfied with you, for you neglect your duties of hospitality in a most unbecoming manner. We must have you give your testimony why you have come so late, for the flowers are all hanging their heads, the nightingales will not sing any more, and the lambs in the meadow will not touch the sweetest grass. Every thing is parching and dying because you are not here, and with desire to see you."

"That is not true," cried another merry voice; the window of the school house opened with a rattle, and the jolly young schoolmaster looked out and threatened with his rod the grave mayor.

"How can you say, sir, that every thing is going to ruin? Am I not here to keep the whole together? Since the unwise people stopped learning, I have become the schoolmaster of the dear kine, and am giving them lessons in the art of making life agreeable. I am the dancing master of the goats, and have opened a ballet school for the kids."

Marie Antoinette laughed aloud. "Mister schoolmaster," said she, "I am very desirous to have a taste of your skill, and I desire you to give a ballet display this afternoon upon the great meadow. So far as you are concerned, Mr. Mayor," she said, with a laughing nod, "I desire you to exercise a little forbearance, and to pardon some things in me for my youth's sake."

"As if my dear sister-in-law now needed any looking after!" cried the mayor, with an emphatic tone.

"Ah, my Lord de Provence," said the queen, smiling, "you are falling out of your part, and forgetting two things. The first, that I am not the queen here; and the second, that here in Trianon all flatteries are forbidden."

"It lies in you, whether the truth should appear as flattery," answered the Count de Provence, slightly bowing.

"That is an answer worthy of a scholar," cried the schoolmaster,
Count d'Artois. "Brother, you do not know the A B C of gallantry.
You must go to school to me."

"I do not doubt, brother Charles, that in this thing I could learn very much of you," said the Count de Provence, smiling. "Meanwhile, I am not sure that my wife would be satisfied with the instruction."

"Some time we will ask her about it," said the queen. "Good-by, my brothers, I must first greet my dear miller."

She rushed forward, sprang with a flying step up the little wooden stairway, and threw both her arms around the neck of the miller, who, laughingly, pressed her to his heart, and drew her within the mill.

"I thank you, Louis!" cried the queen, bending forward and pressing the hand of her husband to her lips. "What a pleasant surprise you have prepared for me; and how good it is in you to meet me here in my pleasant plantation!"

"Did you not say but lately that you wanted this masquerade?" asked the king, with a pleasant smile. "Did not you yourself assign the parts, and appoint me to be the miller, the Count de Provence to be mayor, and the whimsical Artois to be schoolmaster de par la reine, as it runs here in Trianon, and do you wonder now that we, as it becomes the obedient, follow our queen's commands, and undertake the charge which she intrusts to us?" "Oh, Louis, how good you are!" said the queen, with tears in her eyes. "I know indeed how little pleasure you, so far as you yourself are concerned, find in these foolish sports and idle acts, and yet you sacrifice your own wishes and take part in our games." "That is because I love you!" said the king with simplicity, and a smile of pleasure beautified his broad, good natured face. "Yes, Marie, I love you tenderly, and it gives me joy to contribute to your happiness."

The queen gently laid her arm around Louis's neck, and let her head fall upon his shoulder. "Do you still know, Louis," asked she, "do you still know what you said to me when you gave Trianon to me?"

"Well," said the king, shaking his head slowly. "You said to me, 'You love flowers. I will present to you a whole bouquet. I give you Little Trianon.' [Footnote: The very words of the king.—See "Memoire de Marquis de Crequy," vol. iv.] My dear sire! you have given me not only a bouquet of flowers, but a bouquet of pleasant hours, of happy years, for which I thank you, and you alone."

"And may this bouquet never wither, Marie!" said the king, laying his hand as if in blessing on the head of his wife, and raising his good, blue eyes with a pious and prayerful look. "But, my good woman," said he then, after a little pause, "you quite let me forget the part I have to play, and the mill wheel is standing still again, since the miller is not there. It is, besides, in wretched order, and it is full needful that I practise my art of black smith here a little, and put better screws and springs in the machine. But listen! what kind of song is that without?"

"Those are the peasants greeting us with their singing," said the queen, smiling. "Come, Mr. Miller, let us show ourselves to them."

She drew the king out upon the small staircase. Directly at the foot of it stood the king's two brothers, the Counts de Provence and Artois, as chief official and schoolmaster, and behind them the duchesses and princesses, dukes and counts, arrayed as peasants. In united chorus they greeted the mistress and the miller:

"Oil peut-on etre mieux, Qu'au seiu de sa famille?"

The queen smiled, and yet tears glittered in her eyes, tears of joy.

Those were happy hours which the royal pair spent that day in Trianon—hours of such bright sunshine that Marie Antoinette quite forgot the sad clouds of the morning, and gave herself undisturbed to the enjoyment of this simple, country life. They sat down to a country dinner—a slight, simple repast, brought together from the resources of the hen-coop, the mill, and the milk-room. Then the whole company went out to lie down in the luxuriant grass which grew on the border of the little grove, and looked at the cows grazing before them on the meadow, and with stately dignity pursuing the serious occupation of chewing the cud. But as peasants have something else to do than to live and enjoy, their mistress, Marie Antoinette, soon left her resting-place to set her people a good example in working. The spinning-wheel was brought and set upon a low stool; Marie Antoinette began to spin. How quickly the wheel began to turn, as if it were the wheel of fortune—to-day bringing joy, and to-morrow calamity!

The evening has not yet come, and the wheel of fortune is yet turning, yet calamity is there.

Marie Antoinette does not yet know it; her eye still beams with joy, a happy smile still plays upon her rosy lips. She is sitting now with her company by the lake, with the hook in her hand, and looking with laughing face and fixed attention at the rod, and crying aloud as often as she catches a fish. For these fishes are to serve as supper for the company, and the queen has ceremoniously invited her husband to an evening meal, which she herself will serve and prepare. The queen smiles still and is happy; her spinning-wheel is silent, but the wheel of fate is moving still.

The king is no longer there. He has withdrawn into the mill to rest himself.

And yet there he is not alone. Who ventures to disturb him? It must be something very serious. For it is well known that the king very seldom goes to Trianon, and that when he is there he wishes to be entirely free from business.

And yet he is disturbed today; yet the premier, Baron de Breteuil, is come to seek the miller of Little Trianon, and to beseech him even there to be the king again.