honour, security, and happiness. Could they see this, I should be
accused as a national traitor, or even worse, and sent out of the world
by a sudden death of ignominy, merely to glut their hatred of monarchy;
and it is therefore I dissemble.'

"'I perfectly agree with you,' answered the Queen. That cruel moment
when I witnessed the humiliating state to which royalty had been reduced
by the constituents, when they placed the President of their Assembly
upon a level with the King; gave a plebeian, exercising his functions pro
tempore, prerogatives in the face of the nation to trample down
hereditary monarchy and legislative authority--that cruel moment
discovered the fatal truth. In the anguish of my heart, I told His
Majesty that he had outlived his kingly authority: Here she burst into
tears, hiding her face in her handkerchief.

"With the mildness of a saint, the angelic Princesse Elizabeth exclaimed,
turning to the King, 'Say something to the Queen, to calm her anguish!'

"'It will be of no avail,' said the King; 'her grief adds to my
affliction. I have been the innocent cause of her participating in this
total ruin, and as it is only her fortitude which has hitherto supported
me, with the same philosophical and religious resignation we must await
what fate destines!'

"'Yes,' observed M. de Montmorin; 'but Providence has also given us the
rational faculty of opposing imminent danger, and by activity and
exertion obviating its consequences.'

"'In what manner, sir?' cried the Queen; 'tell me how this is to be
effected, and, with the King's sanction, I am ready to do anything to