DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 14 ) on a young princess before whose mind every amusement and every frivolity were temptingly displayed. Her loveliness at first delighted the people. When she appeared on the balcony of the Tuileries, in response to the demand of an enthusiastic crowd, ‘What multitudes !— what multitudes!’ she cried. ‘Madam,’ exclaimed the Duc de Brissac, ‘I mean no offence to the Dauphin, but they are all lovers of yours !’ Marie Antoinette was not strictly beautiful ; the details of her face would not bear close criticism ; the nose was too aquiline; the Hapsburg underlip too prominent; the figure, especially as she grew older, inclined to stoutness; but her eyes beamed with the brilliancy of youth and the kindliness of a sweet disposition. In her every movement there was a nameless grace and a queenly dignity, and from her whole person there radiated an irresistible charm. Not her subjects only, but English visitors join in extolling her fascinations. Foreigners were wont to crowd in the long gallery, which she traversed daily on her way to chapel, merely to see her walk. Writing of her, Horace Walpole says, ‘She shot through the room like an aerial being, all brightness and grace, and without seeming to touch the ground.” Then she had a marvellous manner of bowing, so that when she curtsied to