ABSTRACT
There was a picture of Dagote’s which was at this moment an object of fashionable curiosity in Paris. 108 / It was a representation of one of the many charitable actions of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, ‘then dauphiness - at that time full of life, and splendour, and joy, adorning and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in;’ and yet diffusing life, and hope, and joy, in that lower sphere, to which the radiance of the great and happy seldom reaches. 109 The dauphiness was at that time the pride of France, and the darling of Paris; not only worshipped by the court, but loved by the people. while she was dauphiness, and during the commencement of her reign, every thing, even disastrous accidents, and the rigour of the season, served to give her fresh opportunity of winning the affection and exciting the enthusiasm of the people. When, during the festivities on her marriage, hundreds were crushed to death by the fall of a temporary building, the sensibility of the dauphiness, the eagerness with which she sent all her money to the lieutenant de police for the families of those who had perished, conciliated the people, and turned even the evil presage to good. Again, during a severe frost, her munificence to the suffering poor excited such gratitude, that the people erected to her honour a vast pyramid of snow - Frail memorial! -’These marks of respect were almost as transitory as the snowy pyramid.’
