queen knowledge and judgment. They could not
show what they had not: and it was now too late for the king to become
prompt and active, and for the queen to learn to view people and things
as the rest of the world did, brought up, as she had been, in ignorance
and self-will. She often complained (and we cannot wonder) at having to
live and act among people who showed no presence of mind and good sense:
but, really, the king, and everybody concerned, might well have
complained of the ruin which her folly and self-will brought upon the
present scheme,--the last chance they had for liberty. Not that she
only was to blame. There were mistakes,--there was mismanagement
without end; showing how little those who are brought up in courts,
having everything done for them exactly to their wish, are fit for
business, when brought to the proof.

The case was just this. Here were the king and queen, with a sister and
two children, wanting to get away from Paris. They had plenty of money
and jewels; plenty of horses and carriages; plenty of devoted servants
and friends:--friends at hand, ready to help; friends at a distance,
ready to receive them; and every court in Europe inclined to welcome and
favour them. The one thing to be done was to elude the people of Paris,
and of the large towns through which they must pass.

In such a case as this, it seems clear that, in the first place,
everything at home should go on as usual, up to the very last moment;
that there should be no sign of preparation whatever, to excite the
suspicion of any tradespeople or servants who were not in the secret.

In the next place, it is clear that the king should have separated from
his family on the road. His best chance was to go with one other
gentleman, and to travel as private gentlemen are in the habit of doing.
While he went by one road to one country, the queen and princess should
have gone by another road, under the escort of one or two of the many
gentlemen who were devotedly attached to their cause. The children
might, with their governess, have gone, under the charge of another
gentleman, to Brussels, to the arms of their aunt (their mother's
sister), who held her court there.

In the third place, they should have taken the smallest quantity of
luggage they could travel with without exciting suspicion, carrying on
their persons money and jewels, with which to buy what they wanted when
they were safe. They should have travelled in lig