aria Antoinette
was but a child, mirthful, beautiful, open hearted, and, like all other
children, loving freedom from restraint. Her preceptor ridiculed
incessantly, mercilessly, the manners of the French court, where she was
soon to reign as queen, and influenced her to despise that salutary
regard to appearances so essential in all refined life. Under this
tutelage, Maria became as natural, unguarded, and free as a mountain
maid. She smiled or wept, as the mood was upon her. She was cordial
toward those she loved, and distant and reserved toward those she
despised. She cared not to repress her emotions of sadness or
mirthfulness as occasions arose to excite them. She was conscientious,
and unwilling to do that which she thought to be wrong, and still she
was imprudent, and troubled not herself with the interpretation which
others might put upon her conduct. She prided herself a little upon her
independence and recklessness of the opinions of others, and thus she
was ever incurring undeserved censure, and becoming involved in
unmerited difficulties. She was, in heart, truly a noble girl. Her
faults were the excesses of a generous and magnanimous spirit. Though
she inherited much of the imperial energy of her mother, it was tempered
and adorned with the mildness and affectionateness of her father. Her
education had necessarily tended to induce her to look down with
aristocratic pride upon those beneath her in rank in life, and to dream
that the world and all it inherits was intended for the exclusive
benefit of kings and queens. Still, the natural goodness of her heart
ever led her to acts of kindness and generosity. She thus won the love,
almost without seeking it, of all who knew her well. Her faults were the
unavoidable effect of her birth, her education, and all those nameless
but untoward influences which surrounded her from the cradle to the
grave. Her virtues were all her own, the instinctive emotions of a
frank, confiding, and magnanimous spirit.

The childhood of Maria Antoinette was probably, on the whole, as happy
as often falls to the lot of humanity. As she had never known a mother's
love, she never felt its loss. There are few more enchanting abodes upon
the surface of the globe than the pleasure palaces of the Austrian
kings. Forest and grove, garden and wild, rivulet and lake, combine all
their charms to lend fascination to those haunts of regal festivity. In
the palace of Schoenbrun, and in the imbowere