n.

"At last the die is cast. All that we have now to do is to regulate the
future progress and conduct of affairs as circumstances may permit. I only
wish that others would regulate their conduct by mine. But even in our own
inner circle we have great difficulties and great conflicts. Pity me: I
assure you that it requires more courage to support the condition in which
I am placed than to encounter a pitched battle. And the more so that I do
not deceive myself, and that I see nothing but misery in the want of
energy shown by some, and the evil designs of others. My God! is it
possible that, endowed as I am with force of character, and feeling as I
do so thoroughly the blood which runs in my veins, I should yet be
destined to pass my days in such an age and with such men! But, for all
this, never believe that my courage is deserting me. Not for my own sake,
but for the sake of my child, I will support myself, and I will fulfill to
the end my long and painful career, I can no longer see what I am writing.
Farewell.[15]"

Tears, we may suppose, were blinding her eyes, in spite of all her
fortitude. There was no exaggeration in her declaration to the Empress
Catherine of Russia, with whom at this time she was in frequent
communication, that the "distrust which was shown by all around them was a
moral and continual death, a thousand times worse than that physical death
which was a release from all miseries.[16]" And in the same letter she
explains that to remove this distrust was one principal object which the
king and she had in view in all their measures. Yet, in spite of all his
concessions, the week was not to pass without fresh insults being offered
to the king, which shocked even his phlegmatic apathy. The letter which he
sent to the Assembly to announce his compliance with its wishes was indeed
received with acclamations which, if not sincere, were at least loud, and
apparently unanimous; and, as if in reply to it, La Fayette proposed and
carried a motion that the Assembly should pass an act of amnesty for all
political offenses; and a magnificent festival was appointed to be held in
the Champ de Mars on the following Sunday, in celebration of the joyful
event. But, after the first brief excitement had passed away, the Jacobin
faction recovered its ascendency, and contrived to make that very
festival, which was designed to express the gratitude of the nation, an
occasion of further humiliation to the unhappy Louis. E