The Monticellonian., 1919-01-31
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ignorant of the high part her agony was to pay Ill the upward struggle of Europe, Marie Antoinette did not Gie in vain. What the French revolution began the world war has finished
 There is corridor i'll Versailles at which the Hun envoys can look with bitterness only a corridor and q gorgeous chamber. The chamber is that in which Bismarck explained to the French |plenipotentaries, Jules Favre and Louis Thiers, the crushing and =humfating terms imposed by Germany after the defeat of France 47 years ago. Roles somewhat reversed i'll this year of grace 1913. Near the chamber is that sHmptuous eorr ! Tor known the Hall of Mirrors, where once the osreHch monarehs strolled and chatted with their It's. It is the spot in which William l pro- |t N5Aed the German empire, and it is the spot EheH the peace treaty that shatters his empire fyilI dDubtless be signed
 Strange musty memories haunt every corner of this gorgeous palace outside the Paris walls, thrown open to the clean. winds of free dom. He Pompadour. Du Barry and the train of lesser oyely= =harpies-their intrgues and their wicked beauty still lend dark gleam of romance to the exquisite tapestries against which in the yesterday of history their hrocades stood out in gstening relief. Here is the mirror that reflected the cynic, apprasing smile of Louis NV. There is the marble balustrade lately touched by the 1eweled fingers of the Duchess d'Orleans In that corner famed the scarlet robe of the Cardinal de Rohan
 But because of her innocence and her dramatic II S Marie Ant0lnette most 0f all Whose ence perNades the wide, painted rooms Over these glassy floors her irresponsible feet danced. In the Petit Tranon across the way she played at milk maid. And the gardens still hold a faint sigh of her laugh ringing out earefree Il peasant girls when the whole court joined in blind mans buff. Such blind king and court, eyes closed against the dreadful game impending They were children, the two sovereigns-chdren in years and n out look during those first holiday seasons when the court played and Paris starved and the first re- mote stirrings came which led by long and bloody roads to the Versailles peace conference of the year 1919
 Marie Antoinette was only fourteen years old when they arranged her betrothal to the fifteen year-old dauphin She was married at the age of sixteen At the age of twenty she was queen of France Just before her fortieth birthday she was guillotned.
 |t For three years the king and queen had been virtually prisoners in the Tueres palace, whither they returned after vain attempt at flight. At last the revolutionary fury broke. On the tenth of August, in 1792 the steps of the Tuileries crimson with the blood of the faith ful Swiss guard. Escaping to the national assem- bly,, the king and queen, with their two children. were lodged in the Temple, prison fortress. Blow after blow fell thereafter the defense |pless heads of the royal family The king was taken away, tried, and sent back for an agoniznG l scene of farewell. Standing rigid statue in
 her cell, Marie Antoinette heard the guns boom forth the tidings of his execution.
 A little later she separated from her chil- dren subjected to revoltns indignites during a farcical trial and ten months after the execution of her husband herself condemned to die. The fortitude which Maria Theresa bequeathed to her daughter had been shining with pure and steady ! tioht these many months. Marie Antoinette heard her death sentence with smile.
 On cold and windy morning in October they snmmoned forth this daughter of an empress on whom all shame had been heaped Her brown hair had turned silver; her body was bent; her voice had grown low and tremulous. Not for years had any man heard the gay laugh that once chal- nenRed court etiquette at Versailles. weary