A life of pleasure.
Maria's imprudence.
There is no end to these acts of injustice inflicted upon the queen. The influences which had ever surrounded her had made her very fond of dress and gayety. She was devoted to a life of pleasure, and was hardly conscious that there was any thing else to live for. In fêtes, balls, theaters, operas, and masquerades, she passed night after night. Such was the only occupation of her life. The king, on the contrary, had no taste for any of these amusements. Uncompanionable and retiring, he lived with his books, and in his workshop making trinkets for children. Always retiring to rest at the early hour of eleven o'clock precisely, he left the queen to pursue her pleasures until the dawn of the morning, unattended by him. It was very imprudent in Maria Antoinette thus to expose herself to the whispers of calumny. She was young, inexperienced, and had no judicious advisers.
Night adventure in a hackney-coach.
One evening, she had been out in her carriage, and was returning at rather a late hour, the lady of the palace being with her, when her carriage broke down at her entrance into Paris. The queen and the duchess were both masked and, stepping into an adjoining shop, as they were unknown, the queen ordered one of the footmen to call a common hackney-coach, and they, both entering, drove to the opera-house, with very much the same sense of the ludicrous in being found in so plebeian a vehicle, as a New York lady would feel on passing through Broadway in a hand-cart or on a wheel-barrow. The fun-loving queen was so entertained with the whimsical adventure, that she could not refrain from exclaiming, as soon as she entered the opera-house, to the intimate friends she met there, "Only think! I came to the opera in a hackney-coach! Was it not droll? was it not droll?" The news of the indiscretion spread. All Paris was full of the adventure. Rumor, with her thousand tongues, added innumerable embellishments. Neither the delicacy nor the dignity of the queen would allow her seriously to attempt the refutation of the calumny that, neglected by her husband, she had been out in disguise to meet a nobleman renowned for his gallantries.
The gardens of Marly.
Their unrivaled splendor.
Nothing can be more irksome than the frivolities of fashionable life. To spend night after night, of months and years, in an incessant round of the same trivial gayeties, so exhausts all the susceptibilities of enjoyment that life itself becomes a burden. Louis XIV. had created for himself a sort of elysium of voluptuousness in the celebrated gardens of Marly. Spread out upon the gentle declivity of an extended hill were grounds embellished in the highest style of art, and intended to rival the garden of Eden itself in every conceivable attraction. Pavilions of gorgeous architecture crowned the summit of the hill. Flowers, groves, enchanting walks, and statues of most voluptuous beauty, fountains, lakes, cascades foaming over channels of whitest marble—all the attractions of nature and art were combined to realize the most fanciful dreams of splendor and luxury. Pleasure was the only god here adored; but, like all false gods, he but rewarded his votaries with satiety and disgust.
Gardens of Marly.