She has also made her toilet for this day; but how different is this
toilet of the Widow Capet from that which once Marie Antoinette had
worn to be admired!
Then could Marie Antoinette, the frivolous, fortunate daughter of
bliss, shut herself up in her boudoir for long hours with her
confidante the milliner, Madame Bertier, to devise some new ball-
dress, some new fichu, some new ornament for her robes; then could
Leonard, for this queen with her wondrous blond hair, tax all the
wealth of his science and of his imagination; to invent continually
new coiffures and new head-dresses wherewith to adorn the beautiful
head of the Queen Marie Antoinette, on whose towering curls
clustered tufts of white plumes; or else diminutive men-of-war
unfurled the net-work of their sails; or else, for variety's sake,
on that royal head was arranged a garden, a parterre adorned with
flowers and fruits, with butterflies and birds of paradise.
The Widow Capet needs no milliner now; she needs no friseur now for
her toilette. Her tall, slim figure is draped in a black woollen
dress, which the republic at her request has granted her to mourn
her beheaded husband; her neck and shoulders, once the admiration of
France, are now covered with a white muslin kerchief, which in pity
Bault, her attendant at the jail, has given her.
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