He is very "I am bound in honour to your father not to do so. careful that you should not get too much pleasure out of any pleasant event, and he has forbidden me to speak to you about it." Mathilde still looked at him fixedly. "Come," she said; "you may tell me, at all events, of what nature is this pleasure?" "I do not think I ought to do even that," said Sir Lionel. "Nor I either; but surely you will." "Well, then, you have prevailed so far. Some one is coming, by your father's wish, whom you will be deeply glad to see." A deep flush came over her face, and she turned away, while her heart beat wild and joyously. Little she thought that, by the suggestion of Sir Lionel, Father Martin was coming to live with them. Her thoughts were of one very different. Sir Lionel and Adèle sat whispering together till late; but she sat apart, perfectly silent and perfectly happy. Sir Lionel went away, and Adèle went upstairs; but she was still disinclined to move. De Valognes was coming. He was indeed coming, as it happened, but not to her. (To be continued in our next.) MEMORIES OF TRIANON AND UGENIE, Empress of the French, has lately intimated from Napoleon I. By the restoration of these long-deserted palaces to what they were when the ill-fated Marie Antoinette last smiled on the one, and the unfortunate Josephine last wept in the other, her Imperial Majesty challenges the sympathetic remembrance of the "whole world now flocking to the Exposition of the triumphs of Peace on the Champ de Mars," in behalf of her predecessors above-named, whose misfortunes were partly due to stormy scenes enacted in past times on that very spot. And therefore, some few memories appertaining to Trianon and Malmaison may not be just now unseasonable. Trianon, "le château du petit Trianon," was presented to Queen Marie Antoinette by her husband soon after his accession to the throne. It was built during the reign of Louis XV. (who was about to start thither from Versailles when the regicide Damiens made an attempt on his life), and it was from a visit to Trianon that that once "Well Beloved" monarch returned to die of the small-pox at Versailles in 1774. Until that date, the chief charm of Trianon had consisted in the horticultural beauties abounding there. Marie Antoinette, "petite reine de vingt ans," loved flowers; the King, her husband, then called by his subjects "The Desired," had just begun to manifest sympathy with the simple tastes of her girlhood which still clung to her; and his present to her of Little Trianon marked a doubly new epoch in her life; for if, in 1774, Louis XVI. was, as he declared, "too young to reign," he certainly was too young to be married four years before that date, and it was not until he was proclaimed king that he awoke to a sense of his responsibility as a husband. Long neglected as dauphiness, Marie Antoinette suddenly found herself a powerful queen, and a beloved wife; she had previously been much coerced by the court conventionality of Versailles, and traditional etiquette, wearisome at her age, had there trammelled her in matters of custom and costume. These were still essential for her to observe when en grande tenue before the world; but when in retreat at the little château of Trianon, she enjoyed an immunity from the regal splendour of Versailles, and revelled in a sense of liberty new to her. In a white muslin dress, a straw hat, a fichu of gauze, and with her luxuriant fair hair unpowdered and unbound, appeared the Queen of France in her daily domestic life at Trianon, where she liked to fancy herself a farmer's wife. She cultivated flowers, she fished in the lake, she milked cows; she invited her courtiers to share her pastoral pleasures; she acted, in private theatricals, the part of a shepherdess; she illustrated Rousseau's rural scenes in a way that to behold would have mitigated that proscribed republican's sarcasm on royal performers; she reconciled the King to the "Devin du village," and so far overcame his former educational shyness, his ascetic prejudices, as to induce him to take a prominent part on the stage of Trianon. Years afterwards, when in prison, and on the eve of execution, Louis XVI. remembered the domestic happiness he had enjoyed at Trianon, and said to his venerable friend, and legal adviser, De Malesherbes, "Simple pleasures were too much in accordance with my own natural tastes for me to discountenance them. My wife has since proved herself sublime in adversity. We were both then young. But it is not politic for sovereigns to descend to the level of their subjects; it is essential to maintain a certain distance between the ruler and his people." When the Queen was at Versailles, even strangers recognised her by her stately bearing. Madame le Brun painting one of the best portraits extant of Marie Antoinette, the latter, alluding to her own peculiar erectness of carriage, laughingly asked her, "Were I not a queen, would not people dare to say I looked insolent?" When the Queen was at Marly, she sought compensation for the "fastueux voyage" thither by the excitement of gambling; when, in later years, at the Tuileries, she was oppressed with anxiety, her hair had turned prematurely grey with sorrow; by tears was her last visit to St. Cloud consecrated; but during those few fleeting years, when from time to time Marie Antoinette enjoyed life at Trianon, it was as a woman more than as a queen. At Trianon, however, it was not all pastoral pleasure. It was there that Marie Antoinette first declared her happiness in the society of the Princesse de Lamballe, and that in a way which did credit to her own heart. But upon this point let the Princesse de Lamballe here speak for herself: "Married when a child," says she, "I was still young when I became a childless widow, mourning the memory of the time when I was a wife. Shut up with my sorrow, and retired from the world with my husband's father, the aged and pious Duc de Penthièvre" (ancestor of the Orléans family), "I strove to compensate to him for the loss of his son. By works of charity we sought to console ourselves; but through the clouds of this mournful existence, a new star beamed suddenly on me. As a messenger from heaven, came the young and beauteous Queen Marie Antoinette, addressing me in the softest tones of compassion. It was during that hard winter, when the poor were perishing for want of fuel and bread, that she thus first visited me, and sought to soothe my sorrow, by asking me to help her in mitigating the misery of others. I loved her from the moment I first welcomed her, and she was unwearied in her attempts to lighten the affliction of an old man and a heart-broken woman, sinking beneath the weight of grief. "Sledges were just then introduced in France " (those who travelled in them wore masks), "and by this mode of conveyance the Queen, the Duchesse d'Orléans, the Duc de Penthièvre, and myself, visited poor families who were starving. Returning from one of these expeditions, the Queen said to me, 'The King is out hunting to-day; not the stag, but wood for the poor; he will not come home to Trianon until he has sent his prey to Paris.' And then she invited my father-in-law and me to dine with her and the Princesse Elizabeth, the King's sister, at Trianon. My father-inlaw excused himself, and I went alone-sad as usual. "After dinner, the Queen said to me, 'The King and his sister Elizabeth desire, as I do, Princesse, that you take up your abode with us at Versailles; what say you?' “Thanking her majesty and Madame Elizabeth, I declared that the state of my health and spirits rendered it impossible for me to respond, worthily, to the favour with which they honoured me; and as I spoke, my tears flowed. With the graciousness peculiar to her, the Queen took my hand, and dried my tears with her handkerchief. And then she said, I am about to re-establish a longsuppressed office in my household, and the one who holds it must be near my person. I only hope that the appointment may contribute to the happiness of some estimable individual.' I replied, that none could be otherwise than happy near one so generous and benevolent as herself.' The Queen then merely said, affably, 'Well, if you really think so, my hope will be realised; and Madame Elizabeth laughed. Three or four days afterwards, I dined again, as before, at Trianon; and then, to my astonishment, the Queen and Madame Elizabeth, told me that, with the glad consent of the King,' I was appointed superintendent of her majesty's household. Versailles,' said the Queen, I believe to be a more suitable abode for you than the gloomy château of the Duc de Penthièvre. May the friendship which unites us, contribute from this day forth to our mutual happiness!' Her majesty then took my hand, as also did Madame Elizabeth, saying to the Queen, Ah! dear sister! you must allow a trio in this concert of friendship.' The friendship thus formed at Trianon was life-long, earnest, and harmonious to the last, though long tried by cruel circumstances. adverse to it;-tested by imprisonment and adversity, it was consummated in death. How impossible was it on that day at Trianon for either of the three royal and beautiful women there entering into this compact of friendship to foresee that it would pave the way to the awful fate awaiting each of them! And yet, even then, Trianon had not helped to make Marie Antoinette more popular. From the first moment of her arrival in France, she was suspected of a political preference for Austria, to the detriment of France; and when she received the gift of Trianon from her husband, an absurd rumour was set on foot in Paris that she intended to call it "The Little Vienna," or "Schoenbrunn," in compliment to her native. land. When this rumour reached her ears, the Queen expressed her indignant astonishment that it was supposed possible she would call a royal residence of France, and the gift to her of the King of France, by an Austrian name; but, ere many years were over, she had far worse cause to weep bitterly at Trianon for far worse aspersions, and to exclaim in anguish of heart :-"It is neither the bowl nor the dagger that I fear, for I am doomed to be assassinated by the more deadly and cowardly inventions of anonymous calumny." |