Nevertheless, you must not forget when you read this most piteous story of the Queen Marie Antoinette, that the people she wronged and who wronged her did right when they tried to win their freedom. There was nothing else for them to do, although the way they took was an exceeding hard way and brought much and bitter sorrow in the land.

You may be sure that it was best for France to be rid of the terrible burden of her kings. For centuries kings had reigned in France like emperors, having all power put into their hands or into those of their favourites. Few of these kings thought of anything but their own pleasure. So that they and their nobles might live at ease and make merry, the common folk had to pay heavy taxes. The king must have money for his pleasures, and so must the queen, and so must the nobles and their wives.

If the crops were bad, or there was a fever or a famine or a frost on the land, what cared the great king so long as he was well-fed and housed and warm? But the people must pay their taxes whatever happened, and they did. They were too oppressed, too poor, too unhappy to complain, and what good would it have done?

According to the Feudal System, they belonged body and soul to their masters, to the nobles on whose lands they worked. Who would hear them if they complained? They would only be thrust into prison to suffer still more.

But this injustice could not last forever. As the world grows older, men learn more of the power and beauty of freedom. When came the time of Louis the Fifteenth, bad king as he was, to reign over France, the people were a little better treated than they had been for many a long year; and so they began to lift up their heads and look about them, and see what was going on in the world. They began to think, and some of them wrote down what they thought; and when men begin to think for themselves, and speak out their thoughts, they cannot be slaves much longer.

It was towards the end of Louis the Fifteenth's long reign that Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the Empress of Austria, came to the French Court. She was only fourteen years old, a sweet little princess, with blue eyes and golden hair, and the prettiest, sauciest ways in the world. She could sing, she could dance, she could chatter all day long, and was as ready for fun as any schoolgirl.

And she came to the Court to marry the Dauphin of France. His name was Louis; he was the eldest son of the eldest son of Louis the Fifteenth, and heir to the throne, for his father was dead. He was fifteen years old when he married the little Austrian princess—a great, heavy, awkward boy, rather stupid, but very good-natured. He loved to hunt more than anything else in the world.

He was very kind to his little young wife, however, and did what he could to make her happy, often shielding her when the King's aunts would have punished her, for she was very mischievous, and given to laughing at the stiff and prim ways of these great ladies.

So these two, boy and girl, grew up in the careless French Court. No one told them of the needs and sorrows of their people. They were only taught to amuse themselves, to behave well at Court ceremonies; how then could they know what the people wanted of them, when the time came for them to reign?

Five years after their marriage, Louis the Fifteenth died. When they told the Dauphin and his wife the great news, they both fell on their knees, crying, "Alas, alas! God help us! We are too young to reign!"

At first, however, all promised well. The people were proud of their King and his fair young Queen. It was very easy at first for Marie Antoinette, Austrian, foreigner though she was, to win the love of the whole gallant French nation. But it was not so easy to keep that love. Indeed, without knowing it herself, she very soon lost it.

She was very fond of pleasure. She went to balls and dances and card-parties, merry-makings of all kinds. She wore very fine dresses; she wasted a great deal of money; she gave honours and gold and lands to her favourite attendants and to all their relatives; and when she came to the end of her money, she went to the King and he paid her debts and gave her more. For he loved her and could refuse her nothing.

She wanted a house all her own. He gave her one called the Petit Trianon. It stood near the great palace of Versailles, and there she would give private parties to which only her friends were invited. She had this Petit Trianon refurnished, new gardens were laid out, a dairy and a small farm were built near it, and all the money needed for this came from the heavily taxed people.

Then some began to notice that the Queen never had money to give in charity, for all she spent so much on her own pleasure; and they did not like her any the better for it. They saw that the King, although so amiable, only did what the Ministers and the Queen told him to do, and they began to grow restless and rebellious.

One good Chief Minister might have saved France from the Revolution. A Minister named Turgot did try his best. He wanted to tax the rich people as well as the poor, but when this was suggested the nobles made such an outcry that the weak King refused his consent to the plan; so Turgot resigned. The Treasury grew emptier and emptier, the national debt rose higher and higher, and France was nearly bankrupt.

When the King's eldest son was born, Marie Antoinette regained the heart of her people for a time, for they were loyal still and rejoiced that an heir was born to France. But when famine spread over the land, and taxes were heavier, and money and bread more scarce, when the Treasury remained empty, and the King and his Ministers seemed to do nothing at all to fill it, the people began to hate the Queen. They began to blame her for all the sorrows that came upon them. They believed she made the King do foolish things; they believed that she hated them, and did all in her power to oppress them.

But what they did not believe or notice was that, after her children were born—and there were four of them—Marie Antoinette changed greatly in ways and deeds. She steadily grew more economical, less fond of pleasure and fine clothes; she lived very simply now, happy with her children, although two died before her greater sorrows came.

But the people knew not this; indeed, did not care to know it. They hated their Queen, and she feared them. As for the King, he tried to please everybody, and, of course, pleased nobody.