The Red Cloud chief., 1877-01-18

aid the King VA striving TO arrest the
decay Of the Government Of his king !
dom. Malesherbes was distasteful 10
her for no better reason than hat she
wanted his post for some ~favori,ss ia
vorite. Against Turgot she conspired
with tenacious animosity. because be
had suppressed a sinecure which she
designed for a court parasite. and be-
cause he would not support her caprice
on behalf Of a worthless creature Of her
faction. These two admirable men
were disgraced on the same day. The
Queen wrote to her mother that she
had not meddled in the affair. This
was a falsebocd. for she had even
sought TO have Turgot thrown into the
Bastile. Il am as one dashed TO the
ground" cried The great VoltaIre, now
nearing his end. Never can we con-
sole ourselves for having seen the
golden age dawn and vanish. Ny eyes
see only death in front Of me, now
that Turgot is gone. The rest OF my
DAYS must be all bitterness" What
hope could there he that the parsonage
who had thus put out the light Of hope
for France in 1915 would welcome that
greater flame which was kindled in the
land in 1859? When people write
hymns Of pity for the Queen. we al
ways recall the poor woman whom Ar
thur Young met, as he was walking up
a hill to ease his horse, e Mars-le-
Tour. Though the unfortunate crea-
ture was only twenty-eight, she might
have been taken for sixty or seventy,
her figure was SO bent, her face so fur
rowed and hardened by toll. Her hus-
band. she said, had a morsel Of land,
one cow, and a poor little horse. yet he
had to pay fOrty-twO pounds of wheat
and three chickens to one Seigneur, and
one hundred and sixty pounds of oats
one chicken. and one franc to another,
besides very heavy TALES and other
taxes; and they had seven children
She had heard that something was to
be done by some great folks for such
| pOOr ones, but she did not know who
nor how, but God send us better, for
the TALES and the dues grind us to the
earth" 1t was such hapless drudges
as this who replenished the Queens
gaming tables at Versailles. Thou
sands of them dragged on the burden
of their harrassed and desperate days,
less like men and women than beasts
of the field, wrung and tortured and
mercilessly Overladen, in order that the
Queen might crafty her childish pas
sion for diamonds, Or lavish money and
estates on worthless female Polignacs
| and Lamballs, or kill time at a cost of
500 louis a night at l~asquenet and the
faro-bank. The Queen, it is true, was
in all this no worse than other dissipa-
ted women then and since. She did
not realize that it was the system to
which she had stubbOrnly committed
herself that drove the people of the
fields to cut their crop green to be baked
in the oven because their hunger could
not wait. or made them cover whole
days in their beds because their misery
seemed to gnaw them with a duller
fang. That she was unconscious Of its
effect makes no difference in the real
drift of her policy; makes nc difference
in the real judgment that we ought to
pass upon it, nor in the gratitude that
is owed to the stern nan who rose up
to consume her and her court with
righteous flame. The Queen and the
courtiers, and the hard-faring woman
| Of Mars-le-TOur. and that whole gen.
GRAFTON have long been dust and shadow;
they have vanished from the earth, as
if they were no more than the fire-fies
that the peasent of the Italian poet saw
dancing in the vineyard as lie took his
evening rest on the hill side. They
have all fled back into the ~impenetrable
shade whence they came; our minds
are free; if social equity is not a Chi
mera, Marie AntOinetts vas the pro-
tagonist of the most barbarous and ex-
ecrable of causes.-Fo1tnightly Re
rieC.