Chapter 6

"... Do not take any recommendations; listen to no one, if you would be at peace. Have no curiosity,--this is a fault which I fear greatly for you; avoid all familiarity with your inferiors. Ask of Monsieur and Madame de Noailles, and even exact of them, under all circumstances, advice as to what, as a foreigner and being desirous of pleasing the nation, you should do, and that they should tell you frankly if there be anything in your bearing, discourse, or any point which you should correct. Reply amiably to every one, and with grace and dignity; you can if you will. You must learn to refuse.... After Strasburg you must accept nothing without taking counsel of Monsieur and Madame de Noailles; and you should refer to them every one who would speak to you of his personal affairs, saying frankly that being a stranger yourself, you cannot undertake to recommend any one to the king. If you wish you may add, in order to make your reply more emphatic, 'The empress, my mother, has expressly forbidden me to undertake any recommendations.' Do not be ashamed to ask advice of any one, and do nothing on your own responsibility.... In the king you will find a tender father who will also be your friend if you deserve it. Put entire confidence in him; you will run no risk. Love him, obey him, seek to divine his thoughts; you cannot do enough on this moment when I am losing you.... Concerning the dauphin I shall say nothing; you know my delicacy on this point. A wife should be submissive in everything to her husband, and should have no thought but to please him and do his will.... The only true happiness in this world lies in a happy marriage; I know whereof I speak. Everything depends on the wife if she be yielding, sweet, and amusing.... I counsel you, my dear daughter, to reread this letter on the twenty-first of every month. I beg you to be true to me on this point. My only fear for you is negligence in your prayers and studies; and lukewarmness succeeds negligence. Fight against it, for it is more dangerous than a more reprehensible, even wicked state; one can conquer that more easily. Love your family; be affectionate to them--to your aunts as well as to your brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law. Suffer no evil-speaking; you must either silence the persons, or escape it by withdrawing from them. If you value your peace of mind, you must from the start avoid this pitfall, which I greatly fear for you knowing your curiosity....

"Your mother, "MARIA-THERESA."

The grand annoyance Marie Antoinette experienced upon her entrance into the French Court, was the necessity of observing a system of etiquette to which she had been unaccustomed, and soon pronounced, with girlish vehemence, insupportable. Barriere copies a ridiculous anecdote in illustration of this from the manuscript fragments of Madame Campan: "Madame de Noailles" (this was the first lady of honor to the dauphiness) "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to deny it. Her piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of praise, but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere; at the slightest derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought she would have been stifled, and that life would forsake her frame. One day I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The queen was receiving I know not whom--some persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honor, the queen's tire-woman, and the ladies of the bed-chamber were behind the queen. I was near the throne with the two women on duty. All was right; at least, I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead, lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with her hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily perceive that something was not as it should be; as I looked about on all sides to find out what it was, the agitation of the countess kept increasing. The queen, who perceived all this, looked at me with a smile. I found means to approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper: '_Let down your lappets, or the countess will expire._' All this bustle arose from two unlucky pins, which fastened up my lappets, while the etiquette of costume said '_Lappets hanging down_.'"

To the Countess de Noailles Marie Antoinette speedily gave the name of Madame l'Etiquette; this pleasantry the object of it could pardon, not so the French nation. The avowed dislike to ceremony manifested by the lively little dauphiness, her desire to substitute the simple manners of her native Vienna for the stately formality of Versailles, displeased more than her genuine condescension and affability attracted. Early also in her married life, to beguile the heavy tedium of their evenings, she instituted a variety of childish games which became talked of and condemned; she liked theatrical representations, and persuaded her two young brothers-in-law, with the princesses, to join her in performing plays, and though they were kept secret for a time, she suffered for her innocent contrivances in public opinion. It must be remembered that Marie Antoinette had no sincere friends upon her arrival in France, except the Duc de Choiseul and his party, and his disgrace prevented her deriving much benefit from the man who had first negotiated her marriage. The house of Austria was looked upon with dislike and doubt; nor were these, even in the case of the young dauphin's aunt, Madame Adelaide, made a matter of concealment. Thus, at her entrance upon public life, Antoinette was met with cynicism and prejudice, and unfortunately her own conduct rather increased than quieted the insidious voice--the "_bruit sourd_"--of both.

Louis XV. had manifested from the first great pleasure in the society of his grandson's bride. After dining in his apartment at the Tuileries, upon her arrival at Paris, she was obliged to acknowledge the shouts of the multitude, which filled the garden below, by presenting herself on the balcony. The Governor of Paris had told her politely at the time, that "these were so many lovers." Little did she think that at the very moment a strong party around her was planning her divorce, under the supposition that the dauphin's coldness to his bride proceeded from dislike. Louis was a timid, though rough, youth at the time, and for a considerable period treated the attractions which the courtiers so highly extolled, with churlish indifference. The French king, indeed, did his best to promote a better understanding, and when the reserve of the dauphin once thawed, the latter became tenderly attached to her, and greatly improved by her influence and society.

An interesting trait of this youthful pair is told, as occurring at the moment when they might have been excused for entertaining other and more selfish thoughts. They were expecting the intelligence of the death of Louis XV. It had been agreed, as the disorder was one frightfully contagious, that the court should depart immediately upon learning it could be of no further assistance, and that a lighted taper, placed in the window of the dying monarch's chamber, should form a signal for the cavalcade to prepare for the journey. The taper was extinguished; a tumult of voices and advancing feet were heard in the outer apartment. "It was the crowd of courtiers deserting the dead sovereign's ante-chamber, to come and bow to the new power of Louis XVI." With a spontaneous impulse the dauphin and his bride threw themselves upon their knees, and shedding a torrent of tears, exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young to govern." Thus the Countess de Noailles found them as she entered, the first to salute Marie Antoinette as Queen of France.

For some time the young queen's liking for children was ungratified by the possession of any of her own, and this gave rise to an amusing attempt to adopt one belonging to others. One day, when she was driving near Luciennes, a little peasant boy fell under the horses' feet, and might have been killed. The queen took him to Versailles, appointed him a nurse, and installed him in the royal apartments, constantly seating him in her lap at breakfast and dinner. This child afterward grew up a most sanguinary revolutionist! It was nine years before Marie Antoinette had the blessing of any offspring; four children were after that interval, born to her, two of whom died in their infancy, and two survived to share their parent's subsequent imprisonment. The sad history of her son's fate, a promising and attractive boy, is well known.

We have seen the Austrian princess was no favorite with her husband's nation. After a time accusations as unjust as serious assailed her, and in the horrors of the succeeding revolution the popular feeling evinced itself in a hundred frightful ways. Louis XVI., a mild prince, averse to violence or bloodshed, was unfit to stem the tide of opposition; had he possessed the energy of his queen, the Reign of Terror had perhaps never existed. Throughout her misfortunes, in every scene of flight, of opprobrium, and desolation, her magnanimity and courage won, even from the ruffians around, occasional expressions of sympathy. A harrowing and melancholy history is hers, and one which has been often vividly narrated; its details, also, are sufficiently recent to be still fresh within the recollection of many. For these reasons, and further because it seems to us a repellent, if not a mischievous, act to amplify such records before advancing age shall have invested them to the mind with deeper significance, we gladly pass over the picture suggested by this dark historical page, and, resuming the narrative where Madame de Campan drops it, content ourselves with a description of the last scene in the terrible drama.

When this devoted woman left her royal mistress in the miserable cell at the Convent of the Feuillans, she never again saw her. Imprisonment, and the intense grief she experienced, more for others than for herself, completely transformed the once beautiful queen; her hair was prematurely silvered, like that of Mary Stuart, her figure bowed, her voice low and tremulous. Then came the separation from the king. Once more only did her eyes again behold him, and after the parting between the dethroned monarch and his adoring family, he might indeed have been able to say, "The bitterness of death was passed." However weak at intervals, the unhappy Louis met his death heroically. The sufferings of his wife at the time when the guns boomed out the fearful catastrophe, may be supposed to have been as great as the human frame has power to endure. Shortly after, she was separated from her children and conveyed to the prison of the Conciergerie, a damp and loathsome place, whence she was summoned one morning in October to receive a sentence for which it is probable she ardently longed. Let us look at her through the bars of her prison upon her return thither after it was pronounced.

It is four o'clock in the morning. The widowed Queen of France stands calm and resigned in her cell, listening with a melancholy smile to the tumult of the mob outside. A faint illumination announces the approach of day; it is the last she has to live! Seating herself at a table she writes, with hurried hand, a last letter of ardent tenderness to the sister of her husband, the pious Madame Elizabeth, and to her children; and now she passionately presses the insensible paper to her lips, as the sole remaining link between those dear ones and herself. She stops, sighs, and throws herself upon her miserable pallet. What! in such an hour as this can the queen sleep? Even so!

And now look up, daughter of the Caesars! Thou art waked from dreams of hope and light, from the imaged embrace of thy beloved Louis, thy tender infants, by a kind voice, choked by tears. Arise! emancipated one, thy prison doors are open. Freedom, freedom is at hand!

Immediately in front of the palace of the Tuileries--scene of the short months of her wedded happiness--there rises a dark, ominous mass. Around is a sea of human faces; above, the cold frown of a winter's sky. With a firm step the victim ascends the stairs of the scaffold, her white garments wave in the chill breeze, a black ribbon by which her cap is confined beats to and fro against her pale cheeks. You may see that she is unmindful of her executioners--she glances, nay, almost smiles, at the sharp edge of the guillotine, and then turning her eyes toward the Temple, utters, in a few agitated words, her last earthly farewell to Louis and her children. There is a hush--a stillness of the grave--for the very headsman trembles as the horrible blade falls--anon, a moment's delay. And now, look! No, rather veil your eyes from the dreadful sight; close your ears to that fiendish shout--_Vive la Republique!_ It is over! the sacrifice is accomplished! the weary spirit is at rest!

Let us dwell upon this last mournful pageant only sufficiently far as to imitate the virtues, and emulate the firmness and resignation with which she met her doom. Nothing is permitted without a meaning, all is for either warning or example; and while breathing a prayer that Heaven may avert a recurrence of such outrages, let us remember that moral indecision, the undue love of pleasure, and an aimless, profitless mode of life, as surely, and not less fatally, may raise the surging tide of events no human skill can quell, as the most selfish abandonment to uncontrolled desires.

ANDREAS HOFER

(1767-1810)

Andreas Hofer, a native of the village of St. Leonard, in the valley of Passeyr, was born on November 22, 1767. During the greater part of his life he resided peaceably in his own neighborhood, where he kept an inn, and increased his profits by dealing in wine, corn, and cattle. About his neck he wore at all times a small crucifix and a medal of St. George. He never held any rank in the Austrian army; but he had formed a secret connection with the Archduke John, when that prince had passed a few weeks in the Tyrol making scientific researches. In November, 1805, Hofer was appointed deputy from his native valley at the conference of Brunnecken, and again at a second conference, held at Vienna, in January, 1809.

The Tyrol had for many years been an appendage of the Austrian states, and the inhabitants had become devoted to that government; so that when, by the treaty of Presburg, the province was transferred to the rule of the King of Bavaria, then the ally of Napoleon I., the peasants were greatly irritated, and their discontent was further provoked by the large and frequent exactions which the continual wars obliged the new government to levy on the Tyrolese. The consequence was, that when their own neighborhood became the theatre of military operations between Austria and France, in the spring of 1809, a general insurrection broke out in the Tyrol. His resolution of character, natural eloquence, and private influence as a wealthy citizen, joined to a figure of great stature and strength, pointed out Andreas Hofer to his countrymen as the leader of this revolt; and with him were united Spechbacher, Joseph Haspinger, and Martin Teimer, whose names have all become historical. A perfect understanding was maintained between the insurgents and their late masters, and the signal of the insurrection was given by the Archduke John in a proclamation from his head-quarters at Klagenfurth. An Austrian army of 10,000 men, commanded by the Marquis Castellar, was directed to enter the Tyrol and support the insurrection, which broke out in every quarter on the night of April 8, 1809. The Austrian general himself crossed the frontier at daybreak on the 9th. On their side the Bavarians marched an army of 25,000 men into the province to quell the revolt. Hofer and his band of armed peasantry fell upon the Bavarians while entangled in the narrow glens, and on April 10th defeated Besson and Lemoine at the Sterzinger Moos. The next day a troop of peasants under Teimer took possession of Innsbrueck. On the 12th Besson surrendered with his division of 3,000 men. In a single week all the fortresses were recovered, nearly 10,000 troops of the enemy were destroyed, and the whole province was redeemed.

Incensed by this interruption of his plans, Napoleon despatched three armies almost simultaneously to assail the province at three different points. One of these forces was under the command of Marshal Lefebvre, who, on May 12th, defeated the united army of the Austrian soldiers, under Castellar, and the Tyrolese peasantry, under Haspinger and Spechbacher, at Feuer Singer. The troops made a bad use of their victory, slaughtering the inhabitants of the villages on their route, without distinction of age or sex. The Bavarian and French officers encouraged and took part in the excesses of the soldiers; while the insurgents, far from retaliating, refrained from every species of license, and nursed their wounded prisoners with the same care as their own friends. Hofer himself was not always present in action, his talent consisting rather in stimulating his countrymen than in actual fighting; but at the battle of Innsbrueck (May 28, 1809), he led the Tyrolese, exhibited both skill and daring, and defeated the Bavarians with a loss of 4,000 men. The whole of the Tyrol was delivered a second time. But after the battle of Wagram (July 6th), and the armistice of Znaim which immediately followed, the Austrian army was obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, leaving the helpless insurgents to the mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal Lefebvre now invaded the province a second time, and entered it by the road from Salzburg, with an army of 21,000 troops, while Beaumont, having crossed the ridge of Schnartz with a force 10,000 strong, threatened Innsbrueck from the north. On July 30th Innsbrueck submitted. A series of desperate contests followed along the line of the Brenner, mostly with doubtful success, but in one the marshal was defeated, when twenty-five pieces of artillery and a quantity of ammunition fell into the hands of the Tyrolese. Again, on August 12th, Marshal Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian and French soldiers, 2,000 of whom were cavalry, was totally beaten by the Tyrolese army, consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The battle, which was fought near Innsbrueck, is said to have lasted from six in the morning until midnight. For a third time the Tyrol was free.

After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves, Hofer became the absolute ruler of the country; coins were struck with his effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power, however, scarcely lasted two months, and became the cause of his ruin ultimately. Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly 50,000 French and Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to subdue the exhausted province; and, unable to make head against them, Hofer was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. Soon after, a price having been set on his head, a pretended friend (a priest named Donay) was induced to betray him, January 20, 1810. After his arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and the intelligence having been communicated by telegraph to the French emperor, an order was instantly returned that he must be tried. This order was a sentence; and after a court-martial, at which, however, the majority were averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be shot. His execution took place on February 20, 1810, his whole military career having occupied less than forty weeks. The Emperor Francis conferred a handsome pension upon the widow and family of Hofer, and created Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government also raised a marble statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Innsbrueck, where the body of the patriot was interred; while his own countrymen have commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid to mark the spot where he was taken.

QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA

By Mrs. FRANCIS G. FAITHFULL

(1776-1810)

There is at Paretz, near Potsdam, a flower-bordered walk leading from a grotto overlooking the Havel to an iron gate, above which is inscribed "May 20, 1810" and the letter "L." Within the grotto an iron table bears in golden characters, "Remember the Absent."

These words were engraved by order of Friedrich Wilhelm III. of Prussia; and the "absent" he would have remembered--"the star of his life, who had lighted him so truly on his darkened way"--was the wife who died of a broken heart before reaching middle age.

Louise Augusta Wilhelmina, third daughter of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was born on March 10, 1776, in the city of Hanover. Her mother died when she was six years old, and henceforth she and her sister Frederica lived with their grandmother, the Landgravine of Darmstadt, sometimes at the Burgfreiheit Palace, sometimes at a chateau in the Herrengarten, surrounded by formal gardens and orangeries. The girls were brought up simply, making their own clothes, and going much among the poor. Now and then they made expeditions to Strasburg or the Vosges Mountains; and, when the Emperor Leopold was crowned at Frankfort, the Frau von Goethe housed them hospitably, and was highly entertained by the glee with which they worked a quaint sculptured pump in her courtyard. Two years later the advance of French troops compelled them to seek refuge with their eldest sister, the reigning Duchess of Hildburghausen; and on their homeward way they visited the Prussian head-quarters, that the Landgravine might present them to the king. His sons were with him, and long afterward the Crown Prince told a friend, "I felt when I saw her, 'tis she or none on earth."

The wooing was short. On April 24, 1793, he exchanged betrothal rings with Louise, and then rejoined his regiment. Soon after, the Princesses of Mecklenburg went over to the camp, Louise appearing "a heavenly vision" in the eyes of Goethe, who saw her there.

In the December of that same year Berlin, gay with flags and ablaze with colored lamps, welcomed Duke Charles and his daughters; and on Christmas Eve the diamond crown of the Hohenzollerns was placed on her fair head, and in her glistening silver robe she took part in the solemn torch procession round the White Saloon.

Then her young husband took her home to their palace in the "Unter den Linden." They were very happy. In the sunshine of his wife's presence the prince's spirit, crushed in childhood by a harsh tutor, soon revived, while Louise, though the darling of the court, was always most content when alone with him.

"Thank God! you are my wife again," he exclaimed, one day, when she had laid aside her jewels.

"Am I not always your wife?" she asked, laughingly.

"Alas! no; too often you can be only the crown princess."

Her father-in-law never wearied of showering kindnesses on his "Princess of Princesses." On her eighteenth birthday he asked if she desired anything he could give. "A handful of gold for the Berlin poor," was the prompt petition.

"And how large a handful would the birthday child like?"

"As large as the heart of the kindest of kings."