ld please me." And all that she
could venture to do she did. She knew that the marchioness was very poor,
and she sent her by a trusty agent a few hundred louis, and with it a kind
message, assuring the unhappy widow that she would always watch over her
and her son's interests.

CHAPTER XXVII.

The King accepts the Constitution so far as it has been settled.--The
Queen makes a Speech to the Deputies.--She is well received at the
Theatre.--Negotiations with Mirabeau.--The Queen's Views of the Position
of Affairs.--The Jacobin Club denounces Mirabeau.--Deputation of
Anacharsis Clootz.--Demolition of the Statue of Louis XIV.--Abolition of
Titles of Honor.--The Queen admits Mirabeau to an Audience.--His
Admiration of her Courage and Talents.--Anniversary of the Capture of the
Bastile.--Fete of the Champ de Mars.--Presence of Mind of the Queen.

What was probably as painful to Marie Antoinette as these occurrences
themselves was the apathy with which the king regarded them. The English
traveler to whose journal we have more than once referred, and who, in the
first week of the year, saw the royal pair waiting in the gardens of the
Tuileries, remarked that though the queen did not appear in good health,
but showed melancholy and anxiety in her face, the king, on the other
hand, "was as plump as ease could render him.[1]" And in the course of
February, in spite of all her remonstrances, Necker succeeded in
persuading him to go down to the Assembly, and to address the members in a
long speech, in which, though some of his expressions were clearly
intended as a reproof of the Assembly itself for the precipitation and
violence of some of its measures, he nevertheless declared his cordial
assent to the new Constitution, so far as they had yet settled it, and
promised to co-operate in a spirit of affection and confidence in the
labors which still remained to be achieved.

The greater part of the speech is believed to have been his own
composition; and it is characteristic of the fidelity with which, on every
occasion, Marie Antoinette adhered to her rule of strengthening her
husband's position by her own cordial and conspicuous support, that,
strongly as she had objected to the step before it was taken, now that it
was decided on, she professed a decided approval of it; and when a
deputation of the Assembly, which had been appointed to escort the king
with honor back to the palace, solicited an audience of herself to pay