indifference."

"Of coldness, when I am dying with sorrow! Of coldness, when I have
immolated myself to their interests! Ungrateful nation! I have
sacrificed all to it, even pride, even the happiness of guiding it
myself, because I feared on its account for my fluctuating life. I have
given my sceptre to be borne by a man I hate, because I believed his hand
to be stronger than my own. I have endured the ill he has done to
myself, thinking that he did good to my people. I have hidden my own
tears to dry theirs; and I see that my sacrifice has been even greater
than I thought it, for they have not perceived it. They have believed me
incapable because I was kind, and without power because I mistrusted my
own. But, no matter! God sees and knows me!"

"Ah, Sire, show yourself to France such as you are; reassume your usurped
power. France will do for your love what she would never do from fear.
Return to life, and reascend the throne."

"No, no; my life is well-nigh finished, my dear friend. I am no longer
capable of the labor of supreme command.'"

"Ah, Sire, this persuasion alone destroys your vigor. It is time that
men should cease to confound power with crime, and call this union genius.
Let your voice be heard proclaiming to the world that the reign of virtue
is about to begin with your own; and hence forth those enemies whom vice
has so much difficulty in suppressing will fall before a word uttered from
your heart. No one has as yet calculated all that the good faith of a king
of France may do for his people--that people who are drawn so
instantaneously to ward all that is good and beautiful, by their
imagination and warmth of soul, and who are always ready with every kind