"We
know not at what moment this insurrection prepared by the Jacobins may
burst out, we know not at what moment this palace and the sacred persons
of your Majesties may be at the mercy of an infuriated, insensate mob."
"Let them come--these dangers--these horrors," says the Queen,
intrepidly; "they will bring Brunswick and the allies that much sooner
to this Paris which I will not leave until they enter it." She stamped
her foot upon the velvet carpet and clinched her white hands at her
sides.
"Then your Majesty is resolved to give up the enterprise she has
promised to support, to abandon those loyal servants who have depended
upon her and his Majesty the King?" asks Adrienne, looking at the Queen,
her face pale as marble and her eyes burning with indignation.
"Does Madame Calvert permit herself to question our actions?" says the
Queen, turning imperiously upon her. Suddenly her beautiful eyes filled
with tears. "Forgive me--you are right," she says. "'Tis our fate--our
wretched fate--to seem to abandon and injure all who are brought near
us, all who attempt to serve us. We cannot help ourselves--even now we
must break our faith with these loyal friends, for now I see that after
the refusal of the Assembly to allow us to leave Paris, 'twere madness
to attempt to go.
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