l
table-service of the entire family, eating separately or all together,
the masses, the promenades, the gaming, the presentations, had us for
spectators during a week." What impression was made on her by this
excursion to the royal palace? She herself will tell us nineteen years
later, in her prison. "I was not insensible," she says, "to the effect
of so much pomp and ceremony, but I was indignant that its object
should be to exalt certain individuals already too powerful and of very
slight personal importance: I liked much better to look at the statues
in the gardens than at the persons in the palace; and when my mother
asked if I was satisfied with my visit, 'Yes,' I replied, 'provided it
will soon be over; if I stay here many days longer, I shall detest the
people so much that I shall be unable to hide my hatred.' 'What harm
are they doing you, then?' 'Making me feel injustice, and constantly
behold absurdity.'"

How this impression is emphasized in the really {79} prophetic letter
written by the future heroine of the Revolution to her friend,
Mademoiselle Sophie Cannet, October 4, 1774: "To return to Versailles.
I cannot tell you how greatly all I have examined has made me value my
own situation, and thank Heaven that I was born in an obscure
condition. You think, perhaps, that this sentiment is based on the
slight esteem I attach to the worth of opinion, and my sense of the
reality of the penalties attached to greatness. Not at all. It is
based on the knowledge I have of my own character, which would be very
detrimental both to me and to the State if I were placed at a little
distance from the throne; because I would be keenly shocked by the
extreme inequality which sets so many thousands of men below a single
individual of the same species!" What a prediction! The most
unforeseen events were one day to bring this young plebeian near that
royalty formerly so far above her. The engraver's daughter will be the
wife of a minister of State. And then what will happen? According to
her own expression, her role will be very detrimental to herself and to
the State.

In the same letter she had written: "A beneficent king seems to me an
almost adorable being; but if, before coming into the world, the choice
of a government had been given me, my character would have made me
decide for a republic." She will end by hating the beneficent King,
and probably no one will contribute more than she towards establishin