his voice, she exclaimed:

"Ah, an old acquaintance!"

From this time Fersen was among those who were most intimately
favored by the queen. He had the privilege of attending her
private receptions at the palace of the Trianon, and was a
conspicuous figure at the feasts given in the queen's honor by the
Princess de Lamballe, a beautiful girl whose head was destined
afterward to be severed from her body and borne upon a bloody pike
through the streets of Paris. But as yet the deluge had not
arrived and the great and noble still danced upon the brink of a
volcano.

Fersen grew more and more infatuated, nor could he quite conceal
his feelings. The queen, in her turn, was neither frightened nor
indignant. His passion, so profound and yet so respectful, deeply
moved her. Then came a time when the truth was made clear to both
of them. Fersen was near her while she was singing to the
harpsichord, and "she was betrayed by her own music into an avowal
which song made easy." She forgot that she was Queen of France.
She only felt that her womanhood had been starved and slighted,
and that here was a noble-minded lover of whom she could be proud.

Some time after this announcement was officially made of the
approaching accouchement of the queen. It was impossible that
malicious tongues should be silent. The king's brother, the Comte
de Provence, who hated the queen, just as the Bonapartes afterward
hated Josephine, did his best to besmirch her reputation. He had,
indeed, the extraordinary insolence to do so at a time when one