don't dishonour the nation!" A particular circumstance placed me in
greater danger than the others. In my confusion I imagined, a moment
before the assailants entered the Queen's apartments, that my sister was
not among the group of women collected there; and I went up into an
'entresol', where I supposed she had taken refuge, to induce her to come
down, fancying it safer that we should not be separated. I did not find
her in the room in question; I saw there only our two femmes de chambre
and one of the Queen's two heyducs, a man of great height and military
aspect. I saw that he was pale, and sitting on a bed. I cried out to
him, "Fly! the footmen and our people are already safe."--"I cannot," said
the man to me; "I am dying of fear." As he spoke I heard a number of men
rushing hastily up the staircase; they threw themselves upon him, and I
saw him assassinated.

I ran towards the staircase, followed by our women. The murderers left
the heyduc to come to me. The women threw themselves at their feet, and
held their sabres. The narrowness of the staircase impeded the assassins;
but I had already felt a horrid hand thrust into my back to seize me by my
clothes, when some one called out from the bottom of the staircase, "What
are you doing above there? We don't kill women." I was on my knees; my
executioner quitted his hold of me, and said, "Get up, you jade; the
nation pardons you."

The brutality of these words did not prevent my suddenly experiencing an
indescribable feeling which partook almost equally of the love of life and
the idea that I was going to see my son, and all that was dear to me,
again. A moment before I had thought less of death than of the pain which
the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me. Death is seldom
seen so close without striking his blow. I heard every syllable uttered
by the assassins, just as if I had been calm.