The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France | Page 9

at injustice and ingratitude, to
succor misfortune and distress. And these were habits which, as being
implanted in her heart, she was not likely to forget; but which might be
expected rather to gain strength by indulgence, and to make her both

welcome and useful to any people among whom her lot might be cast.
CHAPTER II.
Proposal for the Marriage of Marie Antoinette to the Dauphin.--Early
Education of the Dauphin.--The Archduchess leaves Vienna in April,
1770.-- Her Reception at Strasburg.--She meets the King at
Compiègne.--The Marriage takes place May 16th, 1770.
Royal marriages had been so constantly regarded as affairs of state, to
be arranged for political reasons, that it had become usual on the
Continent to betroth princes and princesses to each other at a very early
age; and it was therefore not considered as denoting any premature
impatience on the part of either the Empress-queen or the King of
France, Louis XV., when, at the beginning of 1769, when Marie
Antoinette had but just completed her thirteenth year, the Duc de
Choiseul, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was himself a
native of Lorraine, instructed the Marquis de Durfort, the French
embassador at Vienna, to negotiate with the celebrated Austrian prime
minister, the Prince de Kaunitz, for her marriage to the heir of the
French throne, who was not quite fifteen months older. Louis XV. had
had several daughters, but only one son. That son, born in 1729, had
been married at the age of fifteen to a Spanish infanta, who, within a
year of her marriage, died in her confinement, and whom he replaced in
a few months by a daughter of Augustus III., King of Saxony. His
second wife bore him four sons and two daughters. The eldest son, the
Duc de Bourgogne, who was born in 1750, and was generally regarded
as a child of great promise, died in his eleventh year; and when he
himself died in 1765, his second son, previously known as the Duc de
Berri, succeeded him in his title of dauphin. This prince, now the suitor
of the archduchess, had been born on the 23d of August, 1754, and was
therefore not quite fifteen. As yet but little was known of him. Very
little pains had been taken with his education; his governor, the Duc de
la Vauguyon, was a man who had been appointed to that most
important post by the cabals of the infamous mistress and parasites who
formed the court of Louis XV., without one qualification for the
discharge of its duties. A servile, intriguing spirit had alone

recommended him to his patrons, while his frivolous indolence was in
harmony with the inclinations of the king himself, who, worn out with
a long course of profligacy, had no longer sufficient energy even for
vice. Under such a governor, the young prince had but little chance of
receiving a wholesome education, even if there was not a settled design
to enfeeble his mind by neglect.
His father had been a man of a character very different from that of the
king. By a sort of natural reaction or silent protest against the infamies
which he saw around him, he had cherished a serious and devout
disposition, and had observed a conduct of the most rigorous virtue. He
was even suspected of regarding the Jesuits with especial favor, and
was believed to have formed plans for the reformation of morals, and
perhaps of the State. It was not strange that, on the first news of the
illness which proved fatal to him, the people flocked to the churches
with prayers for his recovery, and that his death was regarded by all the
right- thinking portion of the community as a national calamity. But the
courtiers, who had regarded his approaching reign with not unnatural
alarm, hailed his removal with joy, and were, above all things, anxious
to prevent his son, who had now become the heir to the crown, from
following such a path as the father had marked out for himself. The
negligence of some, thus combining with the deliberate malice of
others, and aided by peculiarities in the constitution and disposition of
the young prince himself, which became more and more marked as he
grew up, exercised a pernicious influence on his boyhood. Not only
was his education in the ordinary branches of youthful knowledge
neglected, but no care was even taken to cultivate his taste or to polish
his manners, though a certain delicacy of taste and refinement of
manners were regarded by the courtiers, and by Louis XV. himself, as
the pre-eminent distinction of his reign. He was kept studiously in the
background, discountenanced and depressed, till he contracted an
awkward timidity and reserve which throughout his life he could never
shake off; while a