first day of September, in the year 1715, lamented by a large proportion of the French nation. His beloved Frances was for a considerable period antecedent hidden from his eyes; Louis was no longer sensible of her presence, nor moved by her endearments. On reaching St. Cyr, whither she hastily retired after his death, she is said to have exclaimed, "My grief is calm though great: I have now none but God, and these my dear children;" and, melting into tears, she regarded the crowd of sympathizing girls her bounty had protected with the gaze of a widowed mother.

From this time she never left her beloved residence. In the middle of the year 1717, Peter the Great, of Russia, visited St. Cyr, and, expressing his desire to behold its foundress, a woman so remarkable and attractive, was introduced to her as she lay feeble and failing in her bed. She gives herself an account of the interview: "Sitting down at my bedside," she says, "the Czar asked me if I were sick? I told him I was. He then inquired what was my complaint? I replied, extreme old age. He made no answer, and appeared not to comprehend. His visit was short. He caused them to open the curtains at the foot of my bed, that he might see me." La Beaumelle adds to this account, "that she blushed, and it was remarked by the ladies of St. Cyr, that she even still appeared beautiful."

She survived until the following April, and gradually sunk, without pain or anxiety, into the arms

of death, in her estimation a cradling and tender protector. Some grief reached her declining hours, through the misfortune of the Duc de Maine. "In

all my life," she said, "I have never felt any pleasure so lively as the pain which I now suffer for the troubles of others: I have done well, I now see, in

not seeking to elevate myself to a condition of enviable splendor."

No provision of any kind was made by Louis XIV. for his wife, and though the regent honorably supplied the omission, she would receive only an annual income of six hundred pounds. Yet her school at Noisy, and at St. Cyr, were, by no means, the only benevolent establishments she founded; at Maintenon her manufactory of lace and linen gave employment to hundreds of otherwise idle hands, and taught the poor, under the superintendence of artisans from Normandy, and even Flanders, a means of supporting their families. No wonder that her name was universally beloved, nor that Louis adored (says Madame de Genlis) "a woman so superior to the rest of her sex,-a woman who, deprived during thirty-five years of all the gifts of fortune, had alternated between misery and opulence, obscurity and the summit of favor, without having exemplified an instant's intoxication, without losing any portion of her modesty and simplicity,—a woman who showed, in every trust committed to her, boundless zeal and devotion, and who conducted herself properly in every relation, whether of

relative or friend,—a woman, in a word, bestowing upon the unfortunate three parts of her income, and who, notwithstanding this noble passion, satisfied to sacrifice herself wholly for the poor, invariably displayed fear or contempt for the wealth she never acquired."

MARIE ANTOINETTE.

Born 1755-Died 1798.

IN a chamber of the imperial residence at Vienna, one sultry September evening, in the year 1767, two young sisters, locked in a fast embrace, poured out upon each other's bosom torrents of melancholy A sad, an unnatural sight, to behold these children-for they were scarcely more-exhibiting such overpowering emotion; but far sadder when, upon looking around, it became apparent, from the profusion of bridal attire scattered here and there, that the elder of them was upon the eve of the most important event of her life, her marriage! She was a beautiful slender girl of fifteen, with delicate complexion and abundant golden ringlets, and her countenance characterized by a gentle benevolence justly indicating a disposition which rendered her an universal favorite. But very unlike a bride looked she now, her lips tightly compressed, her face pale as a lily, and her beautiful eyes dimmed with tears, while her youngest and best-beloved sister, scarcely comprehending the motive for a grief she could not see unmoved, lay in the arms of her companion, joining to her's childish lamentations yet more violent, though less expressive.

They were two of the younger children of the Empress Maria Theresa: Josepha, the

young Queen of Naples, and Marie Antoinette, afterward wife of the unhappy Louis XVI. of France.

Gently disengaging herself after some moments thus spent, and with a strong effort controlling her grief, Josepha at length rose, and folding a mantle across her bosom, prepared with a perceptible shudder to leave the apartment.

"I must go, my sister," she said, in mournful accents; "the evening advances, and our mother's commands are not to be disobeyed."

"Alas! Josepha, have you informed her of your dread of this visit? So weak as you are, so suffering as you have been, it cannot be right for you to risk the cold of that horrible vault-let me go to the empress, let me implore"

"Hush, my darling, that is impossible. Ever since these nuptials were first talked of, I have felt the same terrible disinclination and horror; the fate of Joanna, our sister, seems constantly present, warning me not to proceed. But my grief at being separated from all I love has been unheeded. her, I am affianced to Ferdinand; like her, I shall never ascend the Neapolitan throne; I shall die, Antoinette, die before the crown touches my . brows!"

Like

The tears of the younger sister began to flow afresh. "If our father had been alive," she said, "this marriage might have been prevented. O, how indul