The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-01-31

ignorant of the high part her agony was to pay In
the upward struggle of Europe, Marie Antoibctte
did not Gle in vain. What the French revolution
began the world has finished.
There Is n corridor in Versailles at which the
Hun ENJOYS look with bitterness only
a corridor and gorgeous chamber. The chamber
is that in which Bismarck explained TO the French
plenipOtentiarieS, jules Favre and Louis Theirs,
the crushing and humating terms imposed by
Germany after the defeat of France At years ago.
Roles are somewhat reversed in this year of grace.
1919. Near the chamber IS that sumptuous CORR
dor known 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- POmpadolr, Du Barry and the train of
lesser lovely harpes-their intrigues and their
wicked beauty still lend Il dark CLEAN OF romance
TO the exquisite tapestries against which in the
yesterday of history their brocades stood out in
gistening relief Here is the mirror that reflected
the cynic, appraiSing smile of Louis XIV. There IS
the marble baiustrade so lately touched by the
jeweled fingers OF the Duchess dOrleans. In that
corner famed the scarlet robe. of the Cardinal de
Rohan
But because Of her innocence and her dramatic
fate 1t Is Marie Antoinette most OF all whose pres
ence perVadcs the wide, painted rooms. over these
Petit Trianon across the way she played at milk
maid And the gardens still hold faint sigh of
her laugh, ringing out carefree a peasant girls
when the whole court joined in blind mans buff
Such blind king and court, eyes closed aganst
the dreadful game Impending They were children
the two sovereignS-chidren in years and in out
look during those first holiday seasons vhen the
court played and Paris starved and tie first re
mote STRINGS came which led by long and bloody
roads to the Versailles Heace conference of the
year 1919.
Marie Antoinette only fourteen years old
when they arranged her betrothal the fifteen
year-od 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
guillotined.
For three years the king and queen had been
virtually prisoners in the Tuileries palace whittier
they returned after vain attempt at
flight. At last the revolutionary fury broke. On
the tenth of August, in 1892, the steps of the
Tuileries crimson with the blood of the faith
full Swiss guard. Escaping to the national
bly, the king and queen, with their two children
were lodged in the Temple. prison fortress.
Blow after blow fell thereafter on the defense
less heads of the royal family. The king was
taken away tried. and back for an agonizins
scene of farewell. Standing rigid a statue in
her cell, Marie Antoinette heard the guns boom
forth the tidngs of his execution.
A little later she was separated from her chill
dren. subjected to revolving indgnities during a
farcical trial. and ten months after the execution
Of her husband herself condemned TO die The
fortitude which Maria Theresa bequeath to her
daughter had been shining with pure and steady
light these many months. Marie Antoinette heard
her death sentence with smile.
On a cold and windy morning in October they
forth this daughter of 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 chal-
enged court etiquette at Versailles. A weary