agent of the French princes. The officer was known
to the whole table; and the enquiries for the fate of their friends and
France were incessant and innumerable. He evidently suppressed much, to
avoid "a scene;" yet what he had to tell was sufficiently alarming. The
ominous shake of the Jew's head, and the changes of his sagacious
visage, showed me that he at least thought the evil day on the point of
completion.

"Living," said he, "at this distance from the place of events which
succeed each other with such strange rapidity, we can scarcely judge of
any thing. But, if the king would rely more on his peasantry and less on
his populace, and more on his army than either, he might be king of
France still."

"True!--true!" was the general acclamation.

"He should have clung to his noblesse, like Henri Quatre," said a duke.

"He should have made common cause with his clergy," said a prelate, with
the physiognomy of one of Titian's cardinals.

"Any thing but the Tiers Etat," was uttered by all, with a general voice
of horror.

"My letters of this evening," said Mordecai, "tell me that the _fete_ at
Versailles has had dangerous consequences."

"_Ciel_!" exclaimed a remarkably handsome woman of middle age, with the
"air noble" in every feature. "Pardon me, it must be an error. I was
present. It was the most brilliant of all possible reunions. It was a
pledge to the salvation of France. I hear the sound of 'Richard, O mon
Roi!' in my ear at this moment. When, oh when, shall I hear it again!"
She burst into a passion of tears.

The name was electric. All began that very charming air at the moment.
Sobs and sighs stole in between the pauses of the harmony. Their rich
and practised voices gave it the sweetness and solemnity of a hymn. Fine
eyes were lifted to heaven; fine faces were buried in their clasped
hands; and the whole finished like the subsidence of a prayer.

But madame la duchesse was full of her subject, and we were full of
curiosity. We implored her to give us some idea of a scene, of which all
Europe was thinking and talking. She required no importunity, but told
her tale with the majesty of a Clairon. It was at first all exclamation.
"O my king!--O my unhappy but noble queen!--O my beloved but noble
France! _O Richard! O mon Roi!--Le monde vous abandonne!_" She again
wept, and we again sympathized.

"For weeks," said she, "we had been tortured at Versailles with reports
from the capital. We lived in a pe