Polk County news. [volume] (Benton, Tenn.) 191?-1983, 1919-01-30


ignorant of the high part her agony was to pay in
the upward struggle of Europe, Marie Antoinette
did not Gle in vain. What the French revolution
Logan the world war has finished.
There is q corridor in Versailles at which the
Hun ENJOYS can look with bitterness only
corridor and gorgeous chamber. The chamber
is that in which Bismarck explained to the French
penipotentiares Jules Favre and Louis Theirs,
the crushing and humatng terms imposed by
Germany after the defeat of France AZ years ago.
Roles are somewhat reversed in this year of grace,
1919. Near the chamber is that sumptuous corri-
dor known as the Hall of Mirrors. where once the
French monarchs strolled and chatted with their
courts 1t is the spot in which William | pro-
claimed the German empire, and it is the spot
where the peace treaty that skaters his empire
will doubtless be signed.
Strange, musty memories haunt every corner of
this gorgeous palace outside the Paris walls,
thrown open now to the clean, sweet winds of free
dom. De Pompadour, Du Barry and the train of
lesser lovely harpies-their intrigues and their
wicked beauty still lend dark CLEAN of romance
10 the exquisite tapestries against which in the
yesterday Of history their brocades stood out in
glistening relief Here is the mirror that reflected
the cynic, appraSing smile of Louis XIV. There Is
the marble baustrade lately touched by the
jeweled fingers of the Duchess d'Oreans. In that
corner famed the scarlet robe of the Cardinal de
ROhan.
But because of her innocence and her dramatic
fate it Is Marie Antoinette most of all whose pres
ence pervades the wide, painted rooms. Over these
CLASSY floors her irresponsible feet danced. In the
Petit Trianon across the way she played at milk
maid. And the gardens still hold faint sigh of
her laugh, ringing out carefree as peasant girls
when the whole court Joined in blind mans buff
Such blind king and court, eyes closed against
the dreadful game impending. They children,
the two sovereigns-children In years and in out
look during those first holiday seasons when the
court played and Paris starved and the first re-
mote STRINGS came which led by long and bloody
roads to the Versailles peace conference of the
year 1919.
Marie Antoinette only fourteen years old
when they arranged her betrohal to the fifteen
year-old dauphin She married at the age of
sixteen At the age of twenty She was queen of
France Just before her fortieth birthday she was
guotned.
For three years the king and queen had been
virtually prisoners in the Tuileries palace whittier
they were returned after one vain attempt at
flight At last the revolutionary fury broke On
the tenth of August In 1902, the steps Of the
Tuilerles ran crimson with thehlood of the faith
full 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
less heads of the royal family The king was
taken away, tried, and sent back for agonizing
scene of farewell. Standing rigid as a statue In
her CELL Marie Antoinette heard the guns boom
forth the tidngs of his execution.
little later she separated from her chill.
tren subjected to revolving ndignities during
farcical trial and ten months after the execution
of her husband was herself condemned to die. The
forttude which Maria Theresa bequeathed to her
daughter had been shining with pure and steady
light these many months. Marie Antoinette heard
her death sentence with n smile.
ON cold and windy morning in october they
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
md any man heard the gay laugh that once cha
enged court etiquette at Versailles weary wom-