Jeanne Josephe Marie Antoinette, of Lorraine, archduchess of Austria,
the unfortunate queen of Louis XVI. of France, was the daughter of
Francis I. and Maria Theresa, and was born at Vienna, in 1755. She was
educated with the utmost care, and nature had bestowed upon her the
highest beauty of person. Her accomplishments, talents, grace, virtue,
and uncommon loveliness, fitted her for the queen of a gallant nation;
and as such she would have been honored in France, had she lived
before oppression had roused the people to madness. Her mother, in a
letter to her future husband, after alluding to the care with which
she had formed her mind, says, "Your bride, dear dauphin, is separated
from me. As she has ever been my delight, so she will be your
happiness. For this purpose, I have enjoined upon her, as among her
highest duties, the most tender attachment to your person, the
greatest attention to every thing that can please or make you happy.
Above all things, I have recommended to her humility towards God,
because I am convinced that it is impossible for us to secure the
happiness of the subjects confided to us without love to Him who
destroys the sceptres and the thrones of kings according to his
will."
The marriage took place at Versailles, May 16th, 1770, and was
celebrated with uncommon splendor; but, immediately after the
ceremony, a thunder-storm of unparalleled violence broke over the
palace of Versailles, darkened the surrounding scenery, and struck
terror into the hearts of the people for miles around. On May 30th,
the festivities at Paris were saddened by a most terrible accident; a
number of citizens being crushed to death in the Rue Royale, by some
mismanagement on the part of the proper authorities. Fifty-three
persons were found dead, and three hundred more were dangerously
injured.
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE SCAFFOLD.]
The magnanimity of Marie Antoinette displayed itself soon after her
elevation to the throne, on the death of Louis XV. An officer of the
body-guard, who had given her offence on some former occasion,
expressed his intention of resigning his commission; but the queen
forbade him. "Remain," said she; "forget the past. Far be it from the
queen of France to revenge the injuries of the dauphiness." She
devoted herself to the interests of her people with an assiduity
unparalleled in a sovereign of her age; yet, becoming obnoxious to the
court party, her character was assailed in every shape and quarter;
she was accused of setting on foot conspiracies which never existed,
and of entertaining views which never entered her mind. She was termed
the _Austrian_, and it was openly asserted, as well as privately
insinuated, that her heart was estranged from the country of her
husband, and her mind solely occupied with the interests of her
native land.
In her conduct, there was matter for gentle reproof, but none for
malevolent accusation. A gayety which sometimes degenerated into
levity, a passion for fashionable novelties, and an undisguised
contempt for court formalities, instead of being regarded as the
foibles and imprudences of a young and innocent mind, were construed
into evidences of the existence of loose principles, unbridled
extravagance, and hatred for the nation. She was likewise charged with
pettishness under reproof; and we can readily conceive how a female of
so high a rank, conscious of the purity of her intentions, and
perpetually assailed by reckless cavillers, assumed, in reply to the
unworthy insinuations of her enemies, the tone which her virtue and
her birth appeared to warrant. The affair of the diamond necklace
created an extraordinary sensation. A jeweller at Paris demanded
payment for a necklace so costly that the finances of a queen would
hardly warrant its purchase. The result of an examination was the
proof of the queen's integrity.
On the 6th October, 1789, the mob broke into the palace of Versailles,
murdered some of the bodyguards, and threatened the queen in the most
frightful language. At midnight, she received a letter from a friendly
clergyman, advising her to seek safety in flight, as her life would be
sacrificed early the next morning. She resolved to remain, and
destroyed the warning letter. She heard the footsteps of the ruffian
rabble; she thought her time had come, but her life was saved. The
progress of the ruffians was arrested at the very door of her
chamber, where her faithful guardsmen laid down their lives to secure
for their queen a retreat to the chamber of the king. The king and
queen showed themselves, with their children, in the balcony. The mass
of heads beneath for a moment ceased to be agitated; but it was only
for a moment. Silence was broken by a thousand tongues--"No
children--no children! The queen! the queen alone!"
This was a trying moment; but Antoinette had firmness for the crisis.
Putting her son and daughter into her husband's arms, she advanced
alone into the balcony. A spectacle like this filled the fierce people
with admiration, and thundering sounds of "_Vive la Reine!_" succeeded
to the imprecations of the preceding moment. Such is the fickleness of
a mob! The march to Paris was a succession of terrors! The heads of
the two faithful guardsmen, elevated on pikes, met the eyes of the
poor queen as she looked from her carriage windows.
The fate of Antoinette darkened rapidly. With the king, she fled to
Varennes--with him was brought back to Paris. Her courage did not fail
in the scene of the Legislative Assembly, before which body she was
present with her husband, heard his deposition pronounced, and then
went into the Temple, where he was imprisoned. Here, where the light
of heaven faintly fell through grated windows, surrounded by her
family, she appeared to feel entire resignation to the will of Him on
whom the happiness of the humblest individual depends. When she heard
the condemnation of the king from the lips of the royal victim, she
had the firmness to congratulate him on the speedy delivery from
trouble that awaited him. Her eternal separation from her son did not
shake her firmness, and, with a heart apparently unbroken, she was
consigned to the loathsome depths of a dungeon, August 5th, 1793.
The accusations brought against the unhappy queen, on her trial, were
all unfounded, and merely advanced because her enemies had still
respect enough for justice to mimic its forms in their guilty court.
She was charged with having squandered the public money, and with
leaguing in secret with the common enemies of France. The clearness of
her innocence, the falsehood and frivolity of the witnesses, the
eloquence of the defenders, and her own noble bearing, were of no
avail: Marie Antoinette was doomed to die upon the scaffold.
The expression of her countenance, as she passed to the place of
execution, awed the bloodthirsty populace; but the once matchless
beauty of that noble countenance was gone forever. One unacquainted
with the ravages of grief could not believe that the haggard and
forsaken being whom they led to sacrifice, was the same young queen,
who, a short time before, held in thrall the chivalry of France, by
her exquisite loveliness, her winning grace, and sportive gayety.
Antoinette cast back a long, last look at the Tuileries--a look which
told of sorrowful remembrance and of agonizing emotion; then, with an
air of dignified resignation, she ascended the scaffold. "My God,"
cried she, as she kneeled on that fatal platform, "enlighten and
affect my executioner! Adieu, my children, my beloved ones: I am
going to your father!" Thus she perished, in her thirty-eighth year,
October 16th, 1793.
In the gayety of youth and the sunshine of prosperity, Marie
Antoinette had exhibited some foibles amid many virtues. In the
beginning of her trials, she displayed, as well as those around her,
serious mistakes of judgment; but in the dark hour of adversity, she
exhibited a spectacle of truth, firmness, and dignity, hardly less
than sublime. When confined with her family in the prison of the
Temple, with only a glimmering ray of light stealing through the iron
bars, she displayed the utmost calmness, cheered all around with her
counsel and example, and taught them to disregard privation, sickness,
and suffering.
When her husband told her that he was condemned to the scaffold, she
congratulated him upon the speedy termination of an existence so
painful, and the unperishing reward that should crown it. Before the
Revolutionary Tribunal she was unabashed, and, when accused of a
horrid crime, she put her traducers to shame by exclaiming, "I appeal
to every mother here whether such an act be possible!" In solitude,
and in the depths of a damp and loathsome dungeon, where she was
confined for weeks, she was still serene and uncomplaining. In parting
with her son; in taking a last adieu of the palace which had witnessed
her triumphs; in facing the scaffold, and the wretches around it; and
in bidding a final farewell to life,--Marie Antoinette evinced that
patient, deep, and touching heroism which a woman and a Christian
alone can display.