were opened to any one who had secured from the keeper a card of admission; the benefit arising from these cards was applied by order of the queen to the relief of the poor of Versailles.  It is true, one condition of small importance was attached, “by order of the queen,” to the obtaining of such a card.  It was necessary to belong to the nobility, or to the higher magistracy, so as to be entitled to purchase a card of admission into the Trianon, and this sole insignificant condition contained the germ of much evil and of bitter hatred.  The merchant, the spicier, was conscious of a bitter insult in this order, which banished him from Trianon, which made it impossible for him to satisfy his curiosity, and to see the queen as a shepherdess, and the king as a farmer.  This order only whetted more and more the hatred and the contempt for the preferred classes, for the aristocrats, and turned the most important class of the population, the burgesses, into enemies of the queen.  For it was the queen who had given this order which kept away from Trianon the tradesmen; it was the queen alone who ruled in Trianon:  and, to vent vengeance on the queen’s order, she was blamed for assuming a right belonging only to the King of France.  Only he, the king, was entitled to give laws to France, only he could set on the very front of the law this seal:  “De par le roi.”

And now the queen wanted to assume this privilege.  In the castles of pleasure presented by the king to the queen, in Trianon as well as in St. Cloud, was seen at the entrance of the gardens a tablet, containing the regulations under which admission was granted to the public, and these two tablets began with the formula, “De par la Heine!” This unfortunate expression excited the ill-will and the anger of all France; every one felt himself injured, every one was satisfied to see therein an attack on the integrity of the monarchy, on the sovereignty of the king.

“It is no more the king alone who enacts laws,” they said, “but the queen also assumes this right; she makes use of the formalities of the state, she issues laws without the approbation of the Parliament.  The queen wants to place our king aside and despoil us of our rights, so as to take the king’s place!”

And these complaints, these reproaches became so vehement, so loud, that their echoes resounded in the chambers of the king, so that even one of the ministers could make observations to the king on that subject, and say:  “It is certainly immoral and impolitic for a queen of France to own castles for her own private use” [Footnote:  Campan, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 274.]

The good Louis therefore ventured to speak to his consort on this subject, and to ask of her to remove this expression which gave so much offence, and which had so violently excited the public sentiment.

But the pure heart of Marie Antoinette rebelled against such a supposition; her pride was stirred up that she, a queen, the daughter of the Caesars, should make concession to public opinion; that she should submit to this imaginary and invisible power, which dared despise her as a queen, which she recognized not and would not recognize!