The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France | Page 7

could not have been
exceeded had she been encouraged by the most constant success. And
in the last terrible hours, when the monsters who had already murdered
her husband were preparing the same fate for herself, she met their
hatred and ferocity with a loftiness of spirit which even hopelessness
could not subdue. Long before, she had declared that she had learned,
from the example of her mother, not to fear death; and she showed that
this was no empty boast when she rose in the last scenes of her life as
much even above her earlier displays of courage and magnanimity as
she also rose above the utmost malice of her vile enemies.
* * * * *
Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne was the youngest daughter of Francis,
originally Duke of Lorraine, afterward Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
eventually Emperor of Germany, and of Maria Teresa, Archduchess of
Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, more generally known, after
the attainment of the imperial dignity by her husband in 1745, as the
Empress- queen. Of her brothers, two, Joseph and Leopold, succeeded
in turn to the imperial dignity; and one of her sisters, Caroline, became
the wife of the King of Naples. She was born on the 2d of November,
1755, a day which, when her later years were darkened by misfortune,
was often referred to as having foreshadowed it by its evil omens, since
it was that on which the terrible earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins
reached its height. But, at the time, the Viennese rejoiced too sincerely
at every event which could contribute to their sovereign's happiness to
pay any regard to the calamities of another capital, and the courtly poet
was but giving utterance to the unanimous feeling of her subjects when
he spoke of the princess's birth as calculated to diffuse universal joy.
Daughters had been by far the larger part of Maria Teresa's family, so
that she was, consequently, anxious for another son; and, knowing her
wishes, the Duke of Tarouka, one of the nobles whom she admitted to
her intimacy, laid her a small wager that they would be realized by the
sex of the expected infant. He lost his bet, but felt some embarrassment,
in devising a graceful mode of paying it. In his perplexity, he sought
the advice of the celebrated Metastasio, who had been for some time
established at Vienna as the favorite poet of the court, and the Italian,

with the ready wit of his country, at once supplied him with a quatrain,
which, in her disappointment itself, could mid ground for compliment:
"Io perdei; l' augusta figlia A pagar m' ha condannato; Ma s'è ver che a
voi somiglia, Tutto il mondo ha guadagnato."
The customs of the imperial court had undergone a great change since
the death of Charles VI. It had been pre-eminent for pompous
ceremony, which was thought to become the dignity of the sovereign
who boasted of being the representative of the Roman Caesars. But the
Lorraine princes had been bred up in a simpler fashion; and Francis had
an innate dislike to all ostentation, while Maria Teresa had her attention
too constantly fixed on matters of solid importance to have much
leisure to spare for the consideration of trifles. Both husband and wife
greatly preferred to their gorgeous palace at Vienna a smaller house
which they possessed in the neighborhood, called Schönbrunn, where
they could lay aside their state, and enjoy the unpretending pleasures of
domestic and rural life, cultivating their garden, and, as far as the
imperious calls of public affairs would allow them time, watching over
the education of their children, to whom the example of their own
tastes and habits was imperceptibly affording the best of all lessons, a
preference for simple and innocent pleasures.
In this tranquil retreat, the childhood of Marie Antoinette was happily
passed; her bright looks, which already gave promise of future
loveliness, her quick intelligence, and her affectionate disposition
combining to make her the special favorite of her parents. It was she
whom Francis, when quitting his family in the summer of 1764 for that
journey to Innspruck which proved his last, specially ordered to be
brought to him, saying, as if he felt some foreboding of his approaching
illness, that he must embrace her once more before he departed; and his
death, which took place before she was nine years old, was the first
sorrow which ever brought a tear into her eyes.
The superintendence of her vast empire occupied a greater share of
Maria Teresa's attention than the management of her family. But as
Marie Antoinette grew up, the Empress-queen's ambition, ever on the
watch to maintain and augment the prosperity of her country, perceived

in her child's increasing attractions a prospect of cementing more