He had heard it so
often said on all sides that the queen by her levity, her
extravagance, and her intrigues, was the cause of all, that she
alone had brought about the revolution, that he at last believed it,
and turned angrily against the royal woman, whose worst offence in
the eyes of the prince lay in this, that she had been the occasion
of his enforced exile to Coblentz.
And Marie Antoinette knew all these intrigues which were forged by
the prince in Coblentz against herself--knew about all the calumnies
that were set in circulation there; she read the libels and
pamphlets which the storm-wind of revolution shook from the dry tree
of monarchy like withered autumn leaves, and scattered through all
France, that they might be everywhere found and read.
"They will kill me," she would often say, with a sigh, after reading
these pamphlets steeped with hate, and written in blood--" yes, they
will kill me, but with me they will kill the king and the monarchy
too. The revolution will triumph over us all, and hurl us all
together down into the grave."
But still she would make efforts to control the revolution and
restore the monarchy again out of its humiliations. The Emperor
Joseph II., brother of the queen, once said of himself, "I am a
royalist, because that is my business." Marie Antoinette was a
royalist not because it was her business; she was a royalist by
conviction, a royalist in her soul, her mind, and her inmost nature.
Pages:
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395