incere affection for the whole people were
never more manifest than now even in her first moments of indignation.
Even while writing to Madame de Polignac that she is "bathed in tears of
grief and despair," and that she can "hope for nothing good when
perverseness is so busy in seeking means to chill her very soul," she yet
adds that "she shall triumph over her enemies by doing more good than
ever, and that it will be easier for them to afflict her than to drive her
to avenging herself on them.[13]" And she uses the same language to her
sister Christine, even while expressing still more strongly her
indignation at being "sacrificed to a perjured priest and a shameless
intriguer." She demands her sister's "pity, as one who had never deserved
such injurious treatment;[14] but who had only recollected that she was
the daughter of Maria Teresa--to fulfill her mother's exhortations, always
to show herself French to the very bottom of her heart;" but she concludes
by repeating the declaration that "nothing shall tempt her to any conduct
unworthy of herself, and that the only revenge that she will take shall he
to redouble her acts of kindness."

It is pleasing to be able to close so odious a subject by the statement
that the disgrace which the cardinal had thus brought upon himself may be
supposed in some respects to have served as a lesson to him, and that his
conduct in the latter days of his life was such as to do no discredit to
the noble race from which he sprung.

A great part of his diocese as Bishop of Strasburg lay on the German side
of the Rhine; and thither,[15] when the French Revolution began to assume
the blood-thirsty character which has made it a warning to all future
ages, he was fortunate to escape in safety from the fury of the assassins
who ruled France. And though he was no longer rich, his less fortunate
countrymen, and especially his clerical brethren, found in him a liberal
protector and supporter.[16] He even levied a body of troops to re-enforce
the royalist army. But, when the First Consul wrung from the Pope a
concordat of which he disapproved, he resigned his bishopric, and shortly
afterward died at Ettenheim,[17] where, had he remained but a short time
longer, he, like the Duke d'Enghien, might have found that a residence in
a foreign land was no protection against the ever-suspicious enmity of
Bonaparte.

CHAPTER XXI.

The King visits Cherbourg.--Rarity of Royal Journeys.--The Princess