the publication of her
correspondence with her family and intimate friends, which has laid bare,
without disguise, all her inmost thoughts and feelings, her errors as well
as her good deeds, her weaknesses equally with her virtues. Few, indeed,
even of those whom the world regards with its highest favor and esteem,
could endure such an ordeal without some diminution of their fame. Yet it
is but recording the general verdict of all whose judgment is of value, to
affirm that Marie Antoinette has triumphantly surmounted it; and that the
result of a scrutiny as minute and severe as any to which a human being
has ever been subjected, has been greatly to raise her reputation.

Not that she was one of those paragons whom painters of model heroines
have delighted to imagine to themselves; one who from childhood gave
manifest indications of excellence and greatness, and whose whole life was
but a steady progressive development of its early promise. She was rather
one in whom adversity brought forth great qualities, her possession of
which, had her life been one of that unbroken sunshine which is regarded
by many as the natural and inseparable attendant of royalty, might never
have been even suspected. We meet with her first, at an age scarcely
advanced beyond childhood, transported from her school-room to a foreign
court, as wife to the heir of one of the noblest kingdoms of Europe. And
in that situation we see her for a while a light-hearted, merry girl,
annoyed rather than elated by her new magnificence; thoughtless, if not
frivolous, in her pursuits; fond of dress; eager in her appetite for
amusement, tempered only by an innate purity of feeling which never
deserted her; the brightest features of her character being apparently a
frank affability, and a genuine and active kindness and humanity which
were displayed to all classes and on all occasions. We see her presently
as queen, hardly yet arrived at womanhood, little changed in disposition
or in outward demeanor, though profiting to the utmost by the
opportunities which her increased power afforded her of proving the
genuine tenderness of her heart, by munificent and judicious works of
charity and benevolence; and exerting her authority, if possible, still
more beneficially by protecting virtue, discountenancing vice, and
purifying a court whose shameless profligacy had for many generations been
the scandal of Christendom. It is probable, indeed, that much of her early
levi