"The queen!" cried she, drawing back terrified from the window. "The
queen! and--here, in my room!"

Marie Antoinette made a movement of impatience. "You want to say
that it is not becoming for a queen to enter the room of her trusted
waiting-maid, that it is against etiquette. I know that indeed, but
these are days, my good Campan, when etiquette has no power over us,
and when, behind the royal purple, the poor human heart, in all its
need, comes into the foreground. This is such a day for me, and as I
know you are true, I have come to you. Did you not tell me, Campan,
that you should receive the news as soon as the sentence was
pronounced?"

"Yes, your majesty, I do hope to, and that is the reason why I am
standing at the window looking for my messenger."

"How curious!" said the queen, thoughtfully. "They call me Queen of
France, and yet I have no one who hastens to give me news of this
important affair, while my waiting-maid has devoted friends, who do
for her what no one does for the queen."

"I beg your majesty's pardon," answered Madame de Campan, smiling.
"What they do to-day for me, they do only because I am the waiting-
maid of the queen. I was yesterday at Councillor Bugeaud's, in order
to pay my respects to the family after a long interval, for his wife
is a cousin of mine."

"That means," said the queen, with a slight smile, "that you went
there, not to visit your cousin, the councillor's wife, but to visit
the councillor himself. Now confess, my good Campan, you wanted to