auphin's[6] amusement;
and one of her favorite relaxations was to watch him working at the
flower-beds himself with his little hoe and rake; though, as if to mark
that they were in fact prisoners, both she and he were followed wherever
they went by grenadiers of the city-guard, and were not allowed to
dispense with their attendance for a single moment. Marie Antoinette had
reason to complain that she was watched as a criminal[7]. Sad as she was
at heart, she was not allowed the comfort of privacy and retirement. She
was forced to hold receptions for the nobles and chief citizens, and as
the court was now formally established at the Tuileries, she dined every
week in public with the king; but she steadily resisted the entreaties of
some of the ministers and courtiers to visit the theatres, thinking, with
great justice, that an attendance at public spectacles of that character
would have had an appearance of gayety, as unbecoming at such a period of
anxiety, as it was inconsistent with her feelings; and before the end of
the winter she sustained a fresh affliction in the loss of her brother the
emperor[8]; whose death bore with it the additional aggravation of
depriving her of a counselor whose advice she valued, and of an ally on
whose active aid she believed that she could rely far more than she could
on that of their brother Leopold, who now succeeded to the imperial
throne.

Not that Leopold can be charged with indifference to his sister's welfare.
In the very week of his accession to the throne he wrote to her with great
affection, assuring her of his devotion to her interests, and expressing
his desire to correspond with her in the most unreserved confidence. But
the same letter shows that as yet he knew but very little of her;[9] and
that he regarded the difficulties in which some of Joseph's recent
measures had involved the Imperial Government as sufficiently serious to
engross his attention. A few extracts from her reply are worth preserving,
as proving how steadily in her conduct and language to every one she
adhered to her rule of concealing her husband's defects, and putting him
forward as the first person on whose wishes and directions her own conduct
most depend. It also shows what advances she was herself making in the
perception of the true character of the crisis, so far as the objects of
the few honest members who still remained in the Assembly were concerned,
and the extent to which she was trying to re