of France nothing but the sacrificial lamb which the dumb idol
etiquette carries in its leaden arms, and crushes by slowly pressing
it to itself? Tell me, Besenval; speak to me like an honorable and
upright man, and remember that God is above us and hears our words!"

"May God be my witness," said Besenval, solemnly. "Nothing lies
nearer my heart than that your majesty hear me. For my life, my
happiness, and my misery, all lie wrapped up in the heart of your
majesty. No, I answer--no; the aunts of the king, the old
princesses, look with the basilisk eye of envy from a false point.
They have lived at the court of their father; they have seen Vice
put on the trappings of Virtue; they have seen Shamelessness array
itself in the garments of Innocence, and they no longer retain their
faith in Virtue or Innocence. The purity of the queen appears to
them to be a studied coquetry, her unconstrained cheerfulness to be
culpable frivolity. No, the Count de Provence is not right in
bringing the charge against the king that it is wrong in him to love
his wife with the intensity and self surrender with which a citizen
loves the wife whom he has himself selected. He is not right in
alleging it as an accusation against you, that you are the
counsellor of the king, and that you seek to control political
action. Your whole offence lies in the fact that your political
views are different from his, and that, through the influence which
you have gained over the heart of the king, his aunts are driven
into the background. Your majesty is an Austrian, a friend of the
Duke de Choiseul. That is your whole offence. Now you would not be
less blameworthy in the eyes of these enemies were you to live in
exact conformity with the etiquette books of the Queen of France,
covered with the dust of a hundred years. Your majesty would
therefore do yourself and the whole court an injury were you to