great anxiety; they were not ignorant that it was a question without,
either at Coblentz or in the councils of Leopold and the King of
Prussia, to declare the throne of France virtually vacant by default of
the king's liberty, and to nominate as regent one of the emigrant
princes, in order that he might call around him with a show of legality
all his loyal subjects, and give to foreign troops an incontestible
right of intervention. A throne even in fragments will not admit of
participation.

An uneasy jealousy still prevailed in the midst of so many other alarms
even in this palace, where sedition had already effected so many
breaches. "M. le Comte d'Artois will then become a hero," said the queen
ironically, who at one time was excessively fond of this young prince,
but now hated him. The king, on his part, feared that moral forfeiture
with which he was menaced, under pretence of delivering the monarchy. He
knew not which to fear the most, his friends or his enemies. Flight
only, to the centre of a faithful army, could remove him from both these
perils; but flight was also a peril. If he succeeded, civil war might
spring up, and the king had a horror of blood spilled in his defence; if
it did not succeed, it would be imputed to him as a crime, and then who
could say where the national fury would stop? Forfeiture, captivity,
death, might be the consequence of the slightest accident, or least
indiscretion. He was about to suspend by a slender thread his throne,
his liberty, his life, and the lives a thousand times more dear to
him--those of his wife, his two children, and his sister.

His tormenting reflections were long and terrible, lasting for eight
months, during which time he had no confidants but the queen, Madame
Elizabeth, a few faithful servants within the palace, and the Marquis de
Bouillé without.