G40 



MARBLING PAPER MARIA LOUISA. 



considerably improved. It hassonu- extensive cot- 

 ton-mills, besides manufactories of hosiery and lace. 

 A railway, seven miles in length, connects it with 

 the Cromford canal. Population of parish in 1841, 

 97^8 



MARBLING PAPER. The art of marbling 

 paper was originally introduced into England from 

 Germany. In 1810 it made its appearance in Glas- 

 gow, and was carried on to a considerable extent 

 by Mr Hugh Sinclair, and subsequently by Mr 

 Alexander Inglis. Since then, Mr John Ferguson 

 (to whom we are indebted for the materiel of the 

 present article) has bestowed much time and la- 

 bour in perfecting the art. He has produced with 

 much success those fine patterns of marble paper 

 known under the names of Spanish, Dutch, and Non- 

 pariel marbling. The following will give an idea 

 of the principles on which the process of marbling 

 is conducted. A trough is provided nine feet 

 square and four inches deep, into which is put a 

 solution of gum. The colours are ground down 

 t j the consistency of cream, and mixed with gall 

 and turpentine. These are then taken up with a 

 large brush and shaken over the solution in the 

 trough. The paper is then lifted by the two cor- 

 ners and laid gently down on the type of the colours; 

 after which it is removed on rods and hung up on 

 a frame twenty feet in length by nine feet in width. 

 When dry, the paper is glazed by a calender, and 

 sent into the market. The different patterns are 

 formed by laying down the colours in stripes, or in 

 figures like shells, and drawing them to the parti- 

 cular pattern desired, whilst they are floating on 

 the surface of the gum. Book edges are marbled 

 in the same way as a sheet of paper ; the operation, 

 however, requires to be performed with care, lest 

 the colours should make way between the leaves 

 and deface the book. The ends are first marbled 

 and then the fore-edge. The colours for marbling 

 require to be of a very fine description. Formerly, 

 indeed, the artizans in this line were very careful 

 of expense, and deemed rose-pink with a little ver- 

 milion a costly material. Mr Ferguson furnishes 

 us with a list of colours, the bare mention of which 

 would have astounded his predecessors in the art 

 Reds .' Deep scarlet Lake, Carmine, &c. Blues : 

 Prussian, Antwerp, Verditer, and Cobalt. Greens: 

 French, Brunswick, Emerald, and Mineral. Yel- 

 lows : Lake and Crome. Besides these, a great 

 variety of intermediate shades are used ; and the 

 marbler now requires a knowledge of design, and 

 considerable skill in the combination of colours, to 

 produce the effective and highly ornamental pat- 

 terns exhibited in our costly bound books. 



MARIA LOUISA, (a. to articles Bonaparte 

 and Parma.") Maria Louisa Leopoldine Caroline, 

 archduchess of Austria, and wife of Napoleon, was 

 the eldest daughter of the emperor Francis I., and 

 of the second of his four wives, Maria Theresa of 

 Naples, and was born at Scbonbrun, in 1791. She 

 was bred like other daughters of monarchs. She 

 was taught to speak French and Italian, and to 

 play on the piano, with all the other appendages 

 of drawing, dancing, and riding. Born at the very 

 dawn of those tempestuous events, in which Aus- 

 tria was so long and so disastrously engaged, and 

 in which, by a succession of disgraceful campaigns, 

 her father lost, one after another, the best pro- 

 vinces that a succession of marriages had added 

 one after another to the possession of his ances- 

 tors, Maria Louisa had learned from her nurse 

 never to think of the French without shuddering | 



with horror, never to finish her prayers till ^lie 

 had added u curse upon the name of Napoleon. 

 But fortune favoured the brave. Austria fell 

 before Napoleon, and could only propitiate the 

 conqueror by bestowing on his hand Maria Louisa. 

 The mild creature never knew how to show any 

 repugnance to other people's desires. She had 

 been taught to hate, and she hated ; she was now 

 bidden to love, arid she married. On the llth of 

 March, 1810, the nuptials were celebrated at 

 Vienna, Berthier prince of Neufchatel representing 

 the person of Napoleon. Two days afterward the 

 bride proceeded towards France. 



In a little village near Soissons, a single horse- 

 man, in plain dress, rode by her carriage, and ap- 

 proached as if to reconnoitre more closely. The 

 carriage stopped, the door was opened, the cavalier 

 entered, and they proceeded together. Thus did 

 Napoleon, by an unceremonious surprise, introduce 

 himself to his bride; thus was her love romance 

 commenced and finished. During the three fol- 

 lowing days, she was led through all the cere- 

 monies of the French court, and, March 3 1st, she 

 received the nuptial benediction from cardinal 

 Fesch, uncle of Napoleon. 



Maria Louisa was then in the flower of her age. 

 Her stature was above the middle size ; her com- 

 plexion fresh and blooming; she had auburn hair, 

 Austrian eyes and lips ; her hand and foot served 

 as a model for the Concord, a statue of Canova. 

 Her temper was sweet and gentle. An obedient 

 and dutiful wife, she won the affection of her war- 

 rior, by all the charms of youth and innocence. 

 Her modest and artless deference could not fail to 

 conciliate his despotic and wilful temper, and her 

 unaffected tenderness was repaid with kindness 

 and regard. Her intellectual faculties, it is true, 

 were far from equalling those of her unfortunate 

 rival Josephine, who exerted a useful influence 

 upon the mind of her consort. Maria Louisa 

 could do little more than bless and smile. Napo- 

 leon loved her the better for it. His ideas of the 

 sex he had expressed to Madame de Stael, when 

 that ambitious lady asked him who was the woman 

 he liked best in the world. " Cells que fait plus 

 d'enfants,"* replied the destroyer. 



A year had scarcely elapsed, when Maria Louisa 

 made him father of a son. Never was a child 

 more noisily greeted at his coming into the world, 

 nor could ever a woman be prouder of her offspring, 

 than was the fortunate mother of the king of Rome. 

 All Europe was awakened by the thunders an- 

 nouncing her happy accouchement. High mass was 

 celebrated at all altars. Monarchs and princes 

 came to attend the baptismal solemnity. Napo- 

 leon felt as if the revolving wheel of fortune had 

 by that event been stopped for ever. Alas for 

 him, that event was the last of unmingled pro- 

 sperity. His impious war of Spain raised against 

 him the execration of the just; the imprisonment 

 of the pope excited against him the zeal of the 

 pious; his campaign of Russia armed heaven and 

 earth against him. 



His hour had come. The divinity, that had 

 determined his destruction, maddened him first, 

 and made his bewildering greatness the instrument 

 of his fall. While starting for his last campaign 

 of Germany in 1813, with the vain hope of con- 

 ciliating his father-in-law, he placed his dutiful 

 wife at the head of the regency which was to 



* She who gets most children. 



