h stones or timber for other
employers, which he thus appropriated to his own use. He did, indeed, pay
for the goods thus seized, and he won his bet, but when the princes of the
land made so open a parade of their disregard of all law and all decency,
one can hardly wonder that men in secret began, to talk of a revolution,
or that all the graces and gentleness of the queen should be needed to
outweigh such grave causes of discontent and indignation.

As the new year opened, affairs of a very different kind began to occupy
the queen's attention. On political questions, the advice which the
empress gave her differed in some degree from that of her embassador.
Maria Teresa was an earnest politician, but she was also a mother; and, as
being eager above all things for her daughter's happiness, while she
entreated Marie Antoinette to study politics, history, and such other
subjects as might qualify her to be an intelligent companion of the king,
and so far as or whenever he might require it, his chief confidante, she
warned her also against ever wishing to rule him. But Mercy was a
statesman above every thing, and, feeling secure of being able to guide
the queen, he desired to instill into her mind an ambition to govern the
king. On one most important question she proved wholly unable to do so,
since the decision taken was not even in accordance with the judgment or
inclination of Louis himself; but he allowed himself to be persuaded by
two of his ministers to adopt a course against which Joseph had earnestly
warned him in the preceding year, and which, as he had been then
convinced, was inconsistent alike with his position as a king and with his
interests as King of France.

England had been for some years engaged in a civil war with her colonies
in North America, and from the commencement of the contest a strong
sympathy for the colonists had been evinced by a considerable party in
France. Louis, who, for several reasons disliked England and English
ideas, was at first inclined to coincide in this feeling as a development
of anti-English principles: he was far from suspecting that its source was
rather a revolutionary and republican sentiment. But he had conversed with
his brother-in-law on the possibility of advantages which might accrue to
France from the weakening of her old foe, if French aid should enable the
Americans to establish their independence. Joseph's opinion was clear and
unhesitating: "I am a king; it is my