to attract for ever the interest and pity of ages to one of those state
dramas, which are incomplete unless the miseries and misfortunes of a
woman mingle in them. Daughter of Maria Theresa, she had commenced her
life in the storms of the Austrian monarchy. She was one of the children
whom the Empress held by the hand when she presented herself as a
supplicant before her faithful Hungarians, and the troops exclaimed, "We
will die for our king, Maria Theresa." Her daughter, too, had the heart
of a king. On her arrival in France, her beauty had dazzled the whole
kingdom,--a beauty then in all its splendour. The two children whom she
had given to the throne, far from impairing her good looks, added to the
attractions of her person that character of maternal majesty which so
well becomes the mother of a nation. The presentiment of her
misfortunes, the recollection of the tragic scenes of Versailles, the
uneasiness of each day somewhat diminished her youthful freshness. She
was tall, slim, and graceful,--a real daughter of Tyrol. Her naturally
majestic carriage in no way impaired the grace of her movements; her
neck rising elegantly and distinctly from her shoulders gave expression
to every attitude. The woman was perceptible beneath the queen, the
tenderness of heart was not lost in the elevation of her destiny. Her
light brown hair was long and silky, her forehead, high and rather
projecting, was united to her temples by those fine curves which give so
much delicacy and expression to that seat of thought or the soul in
women; her eyes of that clear blue which recall the skies of the North
or the waters of the Danube; an aquiline nose, with nostrils open and
slightly projecting, where emotions palpitate and courage is evidenced;
a large mouth, brilliant teeth, Austrian lips, that is, projecting and
well defined; an oval countenance, animated, varying, impassioned, and
the _ensemble_ of these features replete with that expression impossible
to describe which emanates from the look, the shades, the reflections of
the face, which encompasses it with an iris like that of the warm and