nts, still bearing the marks of
the midnight attack upon the palace in October last, when an attempt was
made to get possession of the persons of the little Queen and her sister,
to carry them off . . . . The marble casements of the doors had been
shattered in several places, and the double doors themselves pierced all
over with bullet holes, from the musketry that played upon them from the
staircase during that eventful night. What must have been the feelings
of those poor children, on listening, from their apartment, to the horrid
tumult, the outcries of a furious multitude, and the reports of firearms
echoing and reverberating through the vaulted halls and spacious courts
of this immense edifice, and dubious whether their own lives were not the
object of the assault!

"After passing through various chambers of the palace, now silent and
sombre, but which I had traversed in former days, on grand court
occasions in the time of Ferdinand VII, when they were glittering with
all the splendor of a court, we paused in a great saloon, with
high-vaulted ceiling incrusted with florid devices in porcelain, and hung
with silken tapestry, but all in dim twilight, like the rest of the
palace. At one end of the saloon the door opened to an almost
interminable range of other chambers, through which, at a distance, we
had a glimpse of some indistinct figures in black. They glided into the
saloon slowly, and with noiseless steps. It was the little Queen, with
her governess, Madame Mina, widow of the general of that name, and her
guardian, the excellent Arguelles, all in deep mourning for the Duke of
Orleans. The little Queen advanced some steps within the saloon and then
paused. Madame Mina took her station a little distance behind her. The
Count Almodovar then introduced me to the Queen in my official capacity,
and she received me with a grave and quiet welcome, expressed in a very
low voice. She is nearly twelve years of age, and is sufficiently well
grown for her years. She had a somewhat fair complexion, quite pale,
with bluish or light gray eyes; a grave demeanor, but a graceful
deportment. I could not but regard her with deep interest, knowing what
important concerns depended upon the life of this fragile little being,
and to what a stormy and precarious career she might be destined. Her
solitary position, also, separated from all her kindred except her little
sister, a mere effigy of royalty in the hands of statesmen, and
surro