Marie Antoinette by Hilaire Belloc — Read

THE expectation of an heir, the Queen's ascendency over her husband, the promise of adventurous war, proceeded with the year. Meanwhile the little business of Bavaria somewhat marred the hopes of the now renewed and invigorated Monarchy. It is a business history should make little of; hardly a combat-rather a diplomatic rupture soon arranged. It covered the year exactly-it was settled with the close of it; but it had its significance in the Queen's life, _for her political action in it confirmed and extended the popular idea that Marie Antoinette was treasonable to French interests in the department of foreign affairs_.

The most apparent thing of that moment was the new certitude and strength of the Queen now that she was to be a mother. Her love of change became less frivolous, more mixed with character; her old passionate friendships, her appetite for colour of every kind-in jewels, in fantasies, in voices-took on some depth and permanence. Even her interference with public affairs was no longer the mere whim that had been the bane of Turgot: it had objects; those objects were pursued, though they were personal and unwise. Unfortunately her mother and Mercy persuaded her, just as her strength appeared, not to the aggrandisement of her husband's throne, but to the mere fending off of Prussia from Maria Theresa's land in the Bavarian quarrel. There arose concerning her action a swarm of whispers, voices not yet of moment, though numerous in the taverns and clear at Court.