against her."

Even after all the atrocities and horrors of the last twelve months, the
news of the resolution to bring her to a trial, which, it was impossible
to doubt, it was intended to follow up by her execution, was received as a
shook by the great bulk of the nation, as indeed by all Europe. And
Necker's daughter, Madame de Stael, who, as we have seen, had been
formerly desirous to aid in her escape, now addressed an energetic and
eloquent appeal to the entire people, calling on all persons of all
parties, "Republicans, Constitutionalists, and Aristocrats alike, to unite
for her preservation." She left unemployed no fervor of entreaty, no depth
of argument. She reminded them of the universal admiration which the
queen's beauty and grace had formerly excited, when "all France thought
itself laid under an obligation by her charms;[12]" of the affection that
she had won by her ceaseless acts of beneficence and generosity. She
showed the absurdity of denouncing her as "the Austrian"--her who had left
Vienna while still little more than a child, and had ever since fixed her
heart as well as her home in France. She argued truly that the vagueness,
the ridiculousness, the notorious falsehood of the accusations brought
against her were in themselves her all-sufficient defense. She showed how
useless to every party and in every point of view must be her
condemnation. What danger could any one apprehend from restoring to
liberty a princess whose every thought was tenderness and pity? She
reproached those who now held sway in France with the barbarity of their
proscriptions, with governing by terror and by death, with having
overthrown a throne only to erect a scaffold in its place; and she
declared that the execution of the queen would exceed in foulness all the
other crimes that they had yet committed. She was a foreigner, she was a
woman; to put her to death would be a violation of all the laws of
hospitality as well as of all the laws of nature. The whole universe was
interesting itself in the queen's fate. Woe to the nation which knew
neither justice nor generosity! Freedom would never be the destiny of such
a people.[13]

It had not been from any feeling of compunction or hesitation that those
who had her fate in their hands left her so long in her dungeon, but from
the absolute impossibility of inventing an accusation against her that
should not be utterly absurd and palpably groundless. So difficult did
they find t