By her side, in the front part of the
carriage, sat her other two children--Therese, the princess royal,
the first-born daughter, and the dauphin Louis, the presumptive heir
of the much loved King Louis the Sixteenth. The good king had not
accompanied his spouse on this journey to Paris, which she undertook
in order to show to her dear, yet curious Parisians that she was
completely recovered, and that her children, the children of France,
were blossoming for the future like fair buds of hope and peace.
"Go, my dear Antoinette," the king had said to his queen, in his
pleasant way and with his good natured smile--" go to Paris in order
to prepare a pleasure for my good people. Show them our children,
and receive from them their thanks for the happiness which you have
given to me and to them. I will not go with you, for I wish that you
should be the sole recipient of the enthusiasm of the people and
their joyful acclamations. I will not share your triumph, but I
shall experience it in double measure if you enjoy it alone. Go,
therefore, my beloved Antoinette, and rejoice in this happy hour."
Marie Antoinette did go, and she did rejoice in the happiness of the
hour. "While riding through Paris, hundreds recognized her, hundreds
hailed her with loud acclamations. As she left the cathedral of
Notre Dame, in order to ascend into the carriage again with her
children and their governess, one would be tempted to think that the
whole square in front of the church had been changed into a dark,
tumultuous sea, which dashed its raging black waves into all the
streets debouching on the square, and was filling all Paris with its
roar, its swell, its thunder roll.
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