“Why, father!  Have you been recalled to the throne of Poland?” asks Marie, and the naive question reveals that many years of banishment have not quenched in the hearts of the exiles the hope of a return to their beloved Poland.

“No, my daughter, but you are to be Queen of France,” replies the father.  “Let us thank God.”

[Illustration:  Marie Leczinska]

Knowing the sequel, one wonders if it was for a blessing or a curse that the refugees, kneeling in that meagre room in the old house at Wissenberg, returned thanks.

Certain it is that the ministers of the boy-monarch were actuated more by a craving to further their own ends than either by the desire to please God or to honour their King, in selecting this obscure maiden from the list of ninety-nine marriageable princesses that had been drawn up at Versailles.  A dowerless damsel possessed of no influential relatives is not in a position to be exacting, and, whate’er befell, poor outlawed Stanislas Poniatowski could not have taken up arms in defence of his daughter.

Having a sincere regard for unaffected Marie Leczinska, I regret being obliged to admit that, even in youth, “comely” was the most effusive adjective that could veraciously be awarded her.  And it is only in the lowest of whispers that I will admit that she was seven years older than her handsome husband, whose years did not then number seventeen.  Yet is there indubitable charm in the simple grace wherewith Marie accepted her marvellous transformation from pauper to queen.  She disarmed criticism by refusing to conceal her former poverty.  “This is the first time in my life I have been able to make presents,” she frankly told the ladies of the Court, as she distributed among them her newly got trinkets.

It is pleasant to remember that the early years of her wedded life passed harmoniously.  Louis, though never passionately enamoured of his wife, yet loved her with the warm affection a young man bestows on the first woman he has possessed.  And that Marie was wholly content there is little doubt.  She was no gadabout.  Versailles satisfied her.  Three years passed before she visited Paris, and then the visit was more of the nature of a pilgrimage than of a State progress.  Twin daughters had blessed the union, and the Queen journeyed to the churches of Notre Dame and Saint Genevieve to crave from Heaven the boon of a Dauphin:  a prayer which a year later was answered.

But clouds were gathering apace.  As he grew into manhood the domestic virtues palled upon Louis.  He tired of the needlework which, doubtless, Marie’s skilled hands had taught him.  We recall how, sitting between her mother and grandmother, the future Queen had broidered altar cloths.  Marie Leczinska was an adoring mother; possibly her devotion to their rapidly increasing family wearied him.  Being little more than a child himself, the King is scarcely likely to have found the infantile society so engaging as did the mother.  Thus began that series of foolish infidelities that, characterised by extreme timidity and secrecy at first, was latterly flaunted in the face of the world.