her that she must send away all
bad advisers, and love the people. The queen replied that she had loved
the people when she lived at Versailles, and that she should go on to
love them now. They repeated to her some reports that they had heard
against her,--that she had wished in the summer that Paris should be
fired upon; and that she would yesterday have fled to the frontiers, if
she had not been prevented. She replied that they had heard these
things, and believed them; and that while some people told and others
believed what was not true, the nation and the king would never be
happy. One woman then spoke a few words of German: but the queen
interrupted her, saying that she was now so completely a French woman,
that she had forgotten her German. This delighted the women much; for
some of the jealousy of the queen which existed was on account of her
being a foreigner. They clapped their hands; and asked for the ribbons
and flowers out of her hat. She took them off with her own hands, and
gave them to the women. They divided them to keep; and they remained
half an hour shouting, "Long live Marie Antoinette! Long live our good
queen!"

It was found, during the whole long period of her residence where she
now was, that everybody who talked with the queen liked her;--her
bitterest enemies were heard to shout as these women did, when once they
had heard her speak; and soldiers, who had spoken insultingly of her
before they knew her, were ready to lay down their lives for her when
they became her guards. The reason of this was, not merely that she was
beautiful, and that she spoke in a winning manner, when she knew how
much depended upon her graciousness;--it was chiefly because the
ignorant and angry people had fancied her a sort of monster, determined
upon her own indulgence at all cost, and even seeking their destruction,
and delighting in their miseries. When, instead of this monster, they
found a dignified woman, with sorrow in her beautiful face, and
gentleness in her voice, they forgot for the time the faults she really
had, and the blameable things she had really done. When again reminded
of these, in her absence, the old hatred revived with new force; they
were vexed that she had won upon them, and ended by being as cruel as we
shall see they were.

She found, this morning, how frightened her little boy had been, the day
before. There was some noise in the court-yard of the palace. Louis
came runnin