The King left La Muette three hours after the Queen, taking the same road, and attended with the same regal state, the same acclamations greeting him as he went along: at Paris he fulfilled the same devotional duties at the same shrines, and afterwards went to the guildhall with the Prince his brother, and the superior officers of the crown, escorted by the life-guards, lighthorse, and gendarmes, who were followed by the royal falconry.

Before their Majesties sate down to the royal banquet, they shewed themselves to the people several times in the balcony, fitted up for the view of the firework that was to follow: every time they made their appearance their condescen sion was acknowledged with the liveliest transports of joy, bursting from the happy hearts of multitudes that were assembled before the place, and were every instant increasing in numbers.

The festival began. In a hall 134 feet in length, 50 wide, and 28 high, the royal banquet, consisting of 78 covers, was prepared. The King and Queen were seated at the upper end of the table by themselves; on each side, the royal family; then seventy ladies, of illustrious family, most brilliantly conspicuous for beauty and attire.

eye

In the adjacent halls, tables were spread for the lords of the Court, and the officers of the royal family. Wherever the directed its gaze, it was arrested by the mingled splendor of marble, gold, lapis lazuli, and porphyry. On all sides outward symbols and declaratory emblems reflected the subject of the day, and the idolized objects of the people's love. Under the same canopy were seen, in one part, the portraits of their Majesties, in another their busts, united by garlands of flowers; on one side, dolphins and eagles; on another, vases of gold, from each of which issued a new-blown lily. Melodious symphonies expressed, in alternate movements, the softest sentiment, and the liveliest joy; while every quarter of an hour, the place resounded with the mingled cries of Long live the King, the Queen, the Dauphin! cries which interrupted the instrumental concerts, only to substitute a harmony a thousand times more rapturous.

After dinner there was a drawing-room and cards, and the feast was terminated by a firework. The subject-scene represented the temple of Hymen; columns, and open porticos, formed a magnificent rotundo: at the entrance of the temple, France was seen receiving, from the hands of the conjugal deity, the precious

child so recently born. In the interior part of the design an altar was placed, on which the offerings of the French people were seen burning. Eagles and cherubs embellished the crownwork of the fabric; which was ornamented with festoons, ciphers, and emblematical figures. This superb firework was followed by a general illumination. Their Majesties, who walked along the streets, and round the various places that were more brilliant in their effect than the rest, perceived at every step they took, devices and transparencies, that most unequivocally expressed those popular regards which were so universally displayed. The general joy afforded them still more unequivocal testimonies of their people's attachment, which was strikingly apparent in the common gaiety that animated the dances and the entertainments, and in that uniform sentiment which caused those engaged in them to break off, as soon as their Majesties approached, that they might surround them as they passed, and enjoy the still greater satisfaction of heaping upon them their unbounded applause. I would here ask my reader, while we together take this retrospect of a period only eight years previous to the French Revolution, if he does not, together with myself, feel a sensation rising in his breast, which we should both alike attempt in vain to

describe? Does it not appear to him that he is reading the detail of a dream, or that he is himself dreaming? Does he not ask himself, where and what were we then? and does he not look around him and enquire, where and what are we now?

Hitherto I have recounted events in the life of MARIA-ANTOINETTA, since her departure from Austria, as an historian only, and not as an eyewitness; but as an historian who felt himself eager to bring to view the glorious character of his royal mistress, and who, because he is highly zealous for her honour, has in no instance paid her aught of homage to which truth could dispute her claim; the records of the time all attest the fidelity of my relation; there was not one which I did not strictly investigate before I took up my pen. My mother, herself, began the collection of facts I have here given to the world; separated from the object of her revering love, she never ceased anxiously to gather from the journals and gazettes of the day, from the public records, and private correspondence, nay, sometimes from details, which the noble-minded and courteous Maria-Theresa would often deign to give her, some happy event, some charming and virtuous instance of conduct in which she

might again behold MARIA-ANTOINETTAwhatever was printed on this her favourite subject she procured, and what she could not so obtain she copied. My father shared in this interesting work; and I leave the reader to judge with what promptitude I joined them, impelled by all the ardour of a youthful mind, by a personal devotion, the source of which was in me one and the same with the source of life.

I am now about to relate events which have happened within my own cognizance, such indeed as I have witnessed with my own eyes, or have heard an account of immediately upon their occurrence from my friends, whom I believe as readily as I would the testimony of my own.

senses.

This birth of a Dauphin, which at the time it took place made every Frenchman happy, appeared to me also the most signal good fortune, being in the first place the cause of my journey into France, and eventually the occasion. of my fixing my residence in that country.

I had studied at the University of Vienna, under the patronage of the Empress. She desired. to be herself informed of the progress that I