DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 20°) weighed heavily on the people. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were the first to renounce that privilege. On their first appearance in public, there- fore, they were received with vociferous applause. But the reaction soon came. We have seen how the queen’s private character had been maligned and defamed. The influence she wielded in political matters brought her unpopularity to a climax. It was known that she was present at the meetings of the ministers, and as many of these ministers were her creatures, she had to bear the odium of their incapacity. It was never forgotten that she was the native of a country which had been for many centuries the hereditary foe of France, and she was accused by the people of not only abhorring the country of her adop- tion, but of acting in collusion with Austria in its supposed intrigues and machinations. And so it came to pass that the feeling with which the people at first regarded her, turned to the deepest hate. She was no longer called by her title, but— ‘the Austrian, and she could not show herself in public without being insulted. Disheartened by her unpopularity and the opposition which she en- countered publicly and privately, the queen aban- doned her frivolous occupations, and sought in the performance of her domestic duties the happiness and affection which was denied to her in her public station.