"
"Well, my child, I will sing for you," answered Marie Antoinette,
"and our good friends shall hear it."
The countenance of the boy beamed with pleasure; with alacrity he
rolled an easy-chair up to the piano, and took his seat in it in the
most dignified manner.
Madame Elizabeth seated herself near him on a tabouret, and Madame
de Tourzel leaned on the back of the dauphin's chair.
"Now sing, mamma, now sing," asked the dauphin.
Marie Antoinette played a prelude, and as her eyes fell upon the
group they lighted up with joy, and then turned upward to God with a
look of thankfulness.
A few minutes before she had felt alone and sad: she had thought of
absent friends in bitter pain, and now, as if fate would remind her
of the happiness which still remained to her, it sent her the son
and the sister-in-law, both of whom loved her so tenderly, and the
gentle and affectionate Madame de Tourzel, whom Marie Antoinette
knew to be faithful and constant unto death.
The flatterers and courtiers, the court ladies and cavaliers, are no
longer in the music-room; the enraptured praises no longer accompany
the songs of the queen; but, out of the easy-chair, in which the
Duchess de Polignac had sat so often, now looks the beautiful blond
face of her son, and his beaming countenance speaks more eloquently
to her than the flatteries of friends.
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