she was not so
proud and extravagant as she was reported to be. Instead of this, she
clung to the old ways, after having declared her acceptance of the new.
She would not appoint people to the offices agreed upon, saying that it
was an injury to the old nobility to let them be turned out. To be
sure, most of them had fled: but if they returned, what would they say,
if they found their places filled, and the queen surrounded by persons
of a lower rank? One noble lady at this time resigned an office she had
been left in possession of, and said she could not stay now that she was
deprived of her hereditary privilege of sitting on a stool unasked in
the queen's presence. This grieved the queen; and she said that this
was, and would be, the way with the nobility. They made no allowance
for her altered circumstances; but deserted her if she admitted to
office persons of inferior rank. She could not do without this
nobility: she said she could not bear to see nobody come to her
card-parties,--to see no throng but of servants at the king's rising and
undressing. Rather than give up these old ceremonies, and this kind of
homage, she broke through the only part of the Constitution that it was
in her power to act upon, and insulted the feelings of the people.
Barnave argued with her, but she would not yield.

The rejoicings for the new Constitution took place on the last day of
September. During the rest of the year, the royal family, and the most
confidential of their servants, were much employed in secret
correspondence with the absent princes and nobility, and with the
foreign Courts. Some of these letters were in cipher, and were copied
by persons who knew nothing whatever of the meaning of what they were
writing. The queen wrote almost all day long, and spent a part of the
nights in reading. Poor lady! She could sleep but little.

Towards the end of the year, a new alarm arose, for which one cannot but
think now there was very little ground; though no one can wonder that
the unhappy family, and the police magistrates who had the charge of
their safety, were open to every impression of terror. The king was
told that one of his pastrycooks was dead; and that the man's office was
to be filled, of right, by a pastry-cook who, while waiting for this
appointment, had kept a confectioner's shop in the neighbourhood, and
who was furious in his profession of revolutionary politics. He had
been heard to say that any man