The Red Cloud chief., 1877-01-18
Marie AntOinette.
A sketch Of the Queen in the Tide Of Her
-Rurke's Eulogium.

Property Burke's ~Eulogium.
Marie AntOinette's high mein in adj
versity, and the contrast between the
dazzling splendOr of her first years and
the scene of outrage and bloody death
that made the climax of her fate, could
not but strike the imaginations of men.
Such contrasts are the stuff of which
Tragedy, the gorgeous muse with
"sceptered pail" loves to weave her
most imposing raiment. But history
must be just; and the character Of the
Queen had far more concern in the dis
aster of the first five years of the RevO-
luton than had the character of Robes
pierre. Evrey new document that comes
to light heaps up proof that if blind
and obstinate choice of personal graft
ication before the common veal be
enough to constitute a State criminal,
then the Queen of France was one of
the worst State criminals that
ever afflicted a nation. The popular
hatred of Marie Antoinette sprang
from a sound instinct. We shall
know how much or how little truth
there is in those frightful charges
against her, that may still be read in a
thousand pamphlets. Those imputed
deparvities far surpaSS anything that
John Knox ever said against Mary
Staurt, or that Juvenal has recorded
against Messalma; and perhaps for the
only parallel we must look TO the hid
eous stories of the byzantine Secretary
against Theodore, the too famous En-
press of Justinian and the prosecutor of
Belisarus. We have to remember that
all the revolutionary portraits are dis
torted by furious passi on, and that
Marie AntOinette may no more deserve
to be compared to Mary Staurt than
Robespierre deserves to be compared to
EzzlemO or to Alva. The aristocrats
were the libelers, if libels they We're.
1t is at least certain that, from the I'M
lucky hour when the Austrian Arch
duchess crossed the French frontier, a
childish bride of fourteen, down to the
hour when the Queen of France made
the attempt to recross it in resentful
flight, one and twenty years afterward,
Marie AntOinette was ignorant, un-
~teachable, blind to events and deaf to
good councils. a bitter grief to her
mother. the civil genius of her hus-
band, the despair of her truest advisers
and an exceedingly bad friend to the
people of France.
When Burke had that immortal vision
Of her at Versailles-"just above the
horizon. decorating and cheering the
elevated sphere she just began to move
in, glittering like the morning star. full
of life and splendor and joy"-we know
from the correspondence between Ma
ria Theresa and her Minister at Yer
sailles, that what Burke really saw was
no divinity, but a Eighty and trouble
some schoolgirl, an accomplice in all
the ignOble intrigues and a sharer of
all the small, busy passions that con-
vulse the insects of a court. The levity
that came with her Lorraine blood broke
out in incredible dissipation 6, in indis-
Greet visits to the masked balls at the
opera, in midnight parades and mysti-
fcations on the terrace at Versailles, in
~insensate gambling. THE court of
France is turned into a gaming hell
said the Emperor Joseph. the Queens
own brother. IF they do not amend,
the revolution will be cruel" These
vices or follies were less mischievous
than her Intervention in affairs of
State. Here her levity was as marked
as in the paltry affairs of the boudoir
and the ante-chamber, and here to
levity she added both discrimination and
vindictivenesa 1t was the Queens in
fiuence that procured the dismissal of
the two virtuous Ministers by whose