so he deserves that all his
subjects should be. Great and small, all displayed the greatest interest
in him; and at the moment of placing the crown on his head the ceremonies
of the church were interrupted by the most touching acclamations. I could
not restrain myself; my tears flowed in spite of all my efforts, and the
people were pleased to see them. During the whole time of our journey I
did my best to correspond to the earnestness of the people; and although
the heat was great, and the crowd immense, I do not regret my fatigue,
which, moreover, has not injured my health. It is a very astonishing
circumstance, but at the same time a very pleasant one, to be so well
received only two months after the revolt, and in spite of the high price
of bread, which unhappily still continues. It is a strange peculiarity in
the French character to allow themselves to be so easily led away by
mischievous suggestions, and then immediately to return to good behavior.
It is very certain that when we see people, even in times of distress,
treating us so well, we are the more bound to labor for their happiness.
The king seems to me penetrated with this truth. As for me, I feel that
all my life, even if I were to live a hundred years, I shall never forget
the coronation day."

But all the tumultuous pomp and exultation only made her return with
renewed pleasure to her quiet retreat of the Trianon, which, with the
assistance of the illustrious Buffon, then superintendent of the king's
gardens, and of Bernard de Jussieu, Director of the Jardin des Plantes,
and celebrated as one of the first botanists of Europe, she was laying out
with a delicate taste that long rendered it one of the chief attractions
to all the inhabitants of the district. For the sentiment which she
expressed in the letter to the empress, which has just been quoted, was
not the mere formal utterance of a barren philanthropy, but was dictated
and carried out by an active benevolence. She felt in her inmost heart the
duty which she there professed, of exerting herself to promote the
happiness of the people, and was far too unselfish to desire to keep to
herself the whole of the delight her gardens were calculated to afford.
The Trianon was a possession exactly calculated to gratify her taste for
innocent rural pleasure. As she said herself, at Versailles she was a
queen; here she was a plain country lady, superintending not only her
flowers, but her farm-yard and her dairy,