But if of baser metal be his mind, In base revenge there is no honor won. Who would a worthy courage overthrow? And who would wrestle with a worthless foe? I knew the ringlets, almost gray, once threads of living gold; I knew that bounding grace of step, that symmetry of mould. We say our hearts are great and cannot E'en now I see her far away in that calm yield; convent-aisle, Because they cannot yield, it proves them I hear her chant her vesper-hymn, I mark her holy smile; poor: Great hearts are tasked beyond their power E'en now I see her bursting forth upon her And breathless silence chained the lips and touched the hearts of all; Rich were the sable robes she wore; her white veil round her fell, And from her neck there hung the cross the cross she loved so well. I knew that queenly form again, though blighted was its bloom; I saw that grief had decked it out, an offering for the tomb; I knew the eye, though faint its light, that once so brightly shone; I knew the voice, though feeble now, that thrilled with every tone; f T THE QUEEN AND THE EMPRESS. WO women, highly born, fair, | Edmund Burke, statesman, orator and man light-hearted and unfortunate, of taste, speaks of her at that early day who have had a greater share thus: "There never lighted on this orb, of popular interest and sym- which she hardly seemed to touch, a more pathy, perhaps, than any of delightful vision." Alas! even then was their historic sisters, are here direful fate stamped upon her royal brow. brought into involuntary com- As she crossed the frontier of France the pany by their "counterfeit pre- toils began to be woven, although as yet sentments." there was MARIE ANTOINETTE. First in order of time and suffering, and also of historic significance, is that young and beautiful Austrian-the daughter of an heroic and famous mother, Maria Theresa, "king" of Hungary and empress of Austria-born to splendor, and determined, when she entered France, to marry the good but torpid dauphin; to make that kingdom, already renowned for festivity and fashion, the most dazzling of courts and the realization of the poet's dream of a new Arcadia. She half succeeded, and for a time; but she was to present a new illustration of the historic principle that alliances with Austria are unfortunate to France. Race, geograph ical position, consequent habits, tastes and purposes, make these two nations antithetical and antagonistic, for many centuries; under the banner-cries of Bourbon and Hapsburg, European history has been the history of their contests. But when this lovely creaBut when this lovely creature appeared as the herald of peace and concord, scholars quoted, and the many accepted, the prophecy of Virgil: "Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia Regna." Her gay spirits were misinterpreted; light and imprudent conduct was declared criminal; the people turned against her; she was called "Madame Veto" by those who supposed that she influenced the king to negative foolish and impulsive acts of the Assembly. Then she was howled at as "the Austrian" by the old hereditary Gaulish hate against the Teutons. She saw her power slipping away, her privileges encroached upon, her liberty invaded; for weary months of grinding suspense she saw the shadow of the guillotine growing darker and darker athwart her humiliation in the Temple and the Concièrgerie, until at last her husband was torn from her arms to die by its knife, and her children taken away, leaving her alone in a nation of infuriated enemies. At last her day came; and when, bound in the tumbril, she was taken to pour out her blood in the Place de Grève, the people, so crowded in the streets that the living mass was wedged in an undulating block, howled as the open car passed along, "A bas l'Au |