Marie’s life was not a smooth one, but it was happier than that of her Royal spouse.  To me there is nothing sadder, nothing more sordid in history, than the feeble, useless existence of Louis XV., whose early years promised so well.  It is pitiful to look at the magnificent portrait, still hanging in the palace where he reigned, of the child-king seated in his robes of State, the sceptre in his hand, looking with eyes of innocent wonder into the future, then to think upon the depth of degradation reached by the once revered Monarch before his body was dragged in dishonour and darkness to its last resting-place.

[Illustration:  Madame Adelaide]

Pleasanter figures that haunt the Chateau are those of the six pretty daughters of Louis and Marie Leczinska.  There are the ill-starred twins, Elizabeth and Henrietta:  Madame Elizabeth, who never lost the love of her old home, and, though married, before entering her teens, to the Infanta of Spain, retired, after a life of disappointment, to her beloved Versailles to die; and the gentle Henrietta who, cherishing an unlucky passion for the young Duc de Chartres, pined quietly away after witnessing her lover wed to another.

Then there is Adelaide, whom Nattier loved to paint, portraying her sometimes as a lightly clad goddess, sometimes sitting demurely in a pretty frock.  Good Nattier! there is a later portrait of himself in complacent middle age surrounded by his wife and children; but I like to think that, when he spent so many days at the Palace painting the young Princess, some tenderer influence than mere artistic skill lent cunning to his brush.

When the daughters of Louis XV. were sent to be educated at a convent, Adelaide it was who, by tearful protest to her royal father, gained permission to remain at the Palace while her sisters meekly endured their banishment.  From this instance of childish character one would have anticipated a career for Madame Adelaide, and I hate being obliged to think of her merely developing into one of the three spinster aunts of Louis XVI. who, residing under the same roof, turned coldly disapproving eyes upon the manifold frailties of their niece, Marie Antoinette.

The sisters Victoire and Sophie are faint shades leaving no impression on the memory; but there is another spirit, clad in the sombre garb of a Carmelite nun, who, standing aloof, looks with the calm eyes of peace on the motley throng.  It is Louise, the youngest sister of all, who, deeply grieved by her father’s infatuation for the Du Barry—­an infatuation which, beginning within a month of Marie Leczinska’s decease, ended only when on his deathbed the dying Monarch prepared to receive absolution by bidding his inamorata farewell—­resolved to flee her profligate surroundings and devote her life to holiness.

It is affecting to think of the gentle Louise, secretly anticipating the rigours of convent life, torturing her delicate skin by wearing coarse serge, and burning tallow candles in her chamber to accustom herself to their detestable odour.