and herself as bound to extend what one of themselves calls a maternal care and kindness to them, restraining as far as she could, and when she could not restrain, reproving their boyish excesses, softening their hearts and winning their affections by the gentle dignity of her admonitions, and by the condescending and hopeful indulgence with which she accepted their expressions of contrition and their promises of amendment.  In one matter, too, which, if not exactly political, was at all events of public interest, she acted in a manner of which none of her predecessors had set an example.  By a custom of immemorial antiquity, at the accession of a new sovereign, a tax had been levied on the whole kingdom as an offering to the king, known as “the gift of the happy accession;[11]” when there was a queen, a similar tax was imposed upon the Parisians, to provide what was called “the girdle of the queen.[12]” It has already been mentioned that the distress which existed in Paris at this time was so severe that, just before the death of the late king, Louis and Marie Antoinette had relieved it by a munificent gift from their private purse; and to lay additional burdens on the people at such a time was not only repugnant to their feelings, but seemed especially inconsistent with their recent generosity.  Accordingly, the very first edict of the new reign announced that neither tax would be imposed.  The people felt the kindness which dictated such a relief more than even the relief itself, and repaid it with expressions of gratitude such as no French sovereign had heard for above a century; but Marie Antoinette, with the humility natural to her on such subjects, made light of her own share in the act of benevolence, turning off the compliments which were paid to her with a playful jest, that it was impossible for a queen to affix a purse to her girdle, now that girdles had gone out of fashion.[13]

On another subject, also, not wholly unconnected with politics, Since the nobleman concerned had once been the chief minister, but in which Marie Antoinette’s interest was personal, she broke through her usual rule of not beginning the discussion with the king, and requested the recall from banishment of the Due de Choiseul.  An unfounded prejudice based upon calumnies set on foot by the cabal of Madame du Barri, had envenomed Louis’s mind against the duke.  He bad been led to suspect that his own father, the late dauphin, had been poisoned, and that Choiseul had been accessory to the crime.  There was nothing more certain than that the dauphin’s death had been natural; but a dislike of the accused duke lingered in the king’s mind, and he eluded compliance with his wife’s request till she put it on entirely personal grounds, by declaring it to be humiliating to herself that one to whom she was under the deepest obligations as the negotiator of her own happy marriage should be under the king’s displeasure without her being able to procure his pardon.  Louis felt