All at once, after a short pause, the queen let her hands fall
again, and raised her head with proud and defiant energy.
"Away with tears!" she said. "What would my friends say were they to
see me? What buzzing and whispering would there be, were they to see
that the gentle queen, the always happy and careless Marie
Antoinette, had shed tears? Oh, my God!" she cried, raising her
large eyes to heaven, "I have today paid interest enough for my
happiness; preserve for me at least the capital, and I will
cheerfully pay the world the highest rates, such as only a miserly
usurer can desire."
And with a proud spirit, and a lofty carriage, the queen strode
forward along the path. The bushes began to let the light through,
and the queen emerged from the English garden into the small plain,
in whose midst Marie Antoinette had erected her Arcadia, her dream
of paradise. The queen stood still, and with a countenance which
quickly kindled with joy, and with eyes which beamed with pleasure,
looked at the lovely view which had been called into being by the
skill of her architect, Hubert Robert.
And the queen might well rejoice in this creation, this poetic idyl,
which arose out of the splendor of palaces like a violet in the
sand, and among the variegated tropical flowers which adorn the
table of a king.
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