[Illustration: Marie Antoinette]

THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

BY CHARLES DUKE YONGE


1876




PREFACE.


The principal authorities for the following work are the four volumes of
Correspondence published by M. Arneth, and the six volumes published by M.
Feuillet de Conches. M. Arneth's two collections[1] contain not only a
number of letters which passed between the queen, her mother the Empress-
queen (Maria Teresa), and her brothers Joseph and Leopold, who
successively became emperors after the death of their father; but also a
regular series of letters from the imperial embassador at Paris, the Count
Mercy d'Argenteau, which may almost be said to form a complete history of
the court of France, especially in all the transactions in which Marie
Antoinette, whether as dauphiness or queen, was concerned, till the death
of Maria Teresa, at Christmas, 1780. The correspondence with her two
brothers, the emperors Joseph and Leopold, only ceases with the death of
the latter in March, 1792.

The collection published by M. Feuillet de Conches[2] has been vehemently