The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1910-01-11
GREAT LOVE
STORIES
of HISTORY
LOUIS XVI AND MARIE
ANTOINETTE
(CopyFighs. ~ the AutAes.S
BY Albert Payson Terhune

1771. For years thereafter they were
not in the least in love. 1t was only
when danger threatened that they be.
came lovers.
The girl was Marie Antoinette, one
of the 16 children OF Marie Theresa,
empress Of Austria. The boy was
Louis. the dauphin (crown prince OF
France. In 1774, at the death Of his
grandfather. he became King Louis
XVI.
Louis was a short, fat, awkward,
goggle-eyed youth, with the manners
of plowman and the brain of kim
dergarten child. He would have made
fairly good blacksmith. He made
wretched king. In a court whose
exquisite grace and courtesy was
world famous, this prince. who
had the grace of an ice wagon and the
courtesy OF sick bear, won the title
Of The Lubberly Lout." and was
openly laughed at by every one. Marie
Antoinette had little more sense than
her boy-husband. But she was pretty,
frivolous and vivacious. Incidentally
she was heartless.
An ODD Pair OF and was de.
lighted meddler
in politics (Which she did not in the
least understand). She joined in the
ridicule against her lubberly husband.
He did not resent this. In fact he
was not, at first. sufficiently interested
in his pretty wife to resent anything.
He neglected her-not through malice.
but stupidity-and left her to amuse
herself in the gay court, undisturbed
by his companionship. He did not so
much as kiss her until after they had
been married two or three years.
Marie Antoinette. thrown upon her
own resources for entertainment.
launched out in a career of gaiety
her decidedly unpopular. She was an
Austrian-and France hated Austria.
She was fond of romping-and the
stiff French court frowned on such
breach of etiquette. She dressed so
gaudily that her mother on receiving
her picture sent it back with the re-
buke: This is not princess. 1t is
some actress" She knew so little OF
the needs of the people that when
she heard that the poor were dying for
lack Of bread she asked: If they can't
get bread. why don't they eat cake?"
Such were the two empty-headed
children who, in 1774. were called
upon to rule France, at a time when
that nations fortunes required gov
eminent by the wisest of brains and
the noblest of hearts. For centuries
France had been misruled. Yearly tho
plain people were more and more
cruelty taxed to provide money for
the king and the mobiles to throw away
in wild extravaganza. The poor were
treated like dogs. Yet, such was their
loyalty to the throne that the populace
at large had endured all this injustice.
and were prepared to endure much
more, sooner than to cast down that
expensive. useless fgurehead known
as Royalty" But Louis XVI. had a
positive genius for making blunders.
His wife was perhaps the only person
in history who could make worse ones.
Together they formed a combination
of criminal folly that within II years
robbed France of its last traces of
loyalty to the throne. 1t is mistake
to think the French people were ripe
for revolution when Louis XVI. and
They were not. Never had a French
kings accession been more gladly
hailed. Every one believed Louis
would bring about an era of good
times. He was almost worshiped by
the nation at large. Perhaps no other
couple on record could so thoroughly
have turned this devotion to hatred
in so short a time.
Louis and Marie Antoinette grew to
be sincerely attached to each other.
There is no doubt the stupid king
learned to worship his vain, foolish
wife, and to rely on her advice, as
had Charles I. of England on that of
Henrietta Maria. And with the same
result. When the people grumbled
the queen laughed to scorn her hus-
bands vague idea of granting them
Justice. When famine and horrible
poverty stalked abroad, it was she
who persuaded Louis to dismiss such
statesmen as were trying to reduce
The Fall Of the anton unon now
'''e' and create r
courses of extravaganza. Through his
love for Marie Antoinette. more than
by any other cause. Louis worked out
his own destruction. For, in 1889. the
people rose against tyranny and de-
stroyed the Bastile prison, which was
that tyranny's chief symbol. Even
then. by listening to wise counsel.
Louis could have saved his crown and
his head. Instead he let himself be
guided by the queen and her friends.
AS a result the French revolution set
in. Louis was dethroned, then impris-
oned. then beheaded Marie An
toinette, whom the people looked upon
as the author Of their wrongs, was
also cast into prison and made to suf.
fer such indignities that her hair
turned white. On October Is, 1898,
Marie Antoinette was beheaded
This queen has been idealized as a
martyr and denounced as vile. AS a
matter of fact, she was merely silly.
heartless. vain woman who paid heav-
lily for the wholesale sufferings she
had caused.
An official estimate places the num-
Der of dairy COWS in the United
States at $1,000, 900.