g menaces an
inevitable catastrophe; but she is prepared for every thing. She has
learned from her mother not to fear death. That may as well come to-day as
to-morrow. She only fears for her dear children, and for those she loves;
and high among those whom she loves she places her sister-in-law
Elizabeth, who is always an angel aiding her to support her sorrows, and
who, with her poor, dear children, never quits her.[1]"

A long continuance of sorrows and fears, such as had now for nearly three
years pressed upon the writer of this letter, would so wear away and break
down ordinary souls that, when a crisis came, they would be found wholly
unequal to grapple with it; and we may therefore the better form some idea
of the strength of mind and almost superhuman fortitude of this admirable
queen, if, from time to time, we fix our attention on these not
exaggerated complaints, for indeed the misfortunes that elicited them
admit of no exaggeration; and then remember that, after so long a period
of such uninterrupted suffering, her spirit was so far from being broken,
that, as increasing dangers and horrors thickened around her, her courage
seemed to increase also. Her faithful attendant, Madame de Campan, has
remarked that her troubles had not even affected her temper; that no one
ever saw her out of humor. In every respect, to the very last, she showed
herself superior to the utmost malice of her enemies.

The news of the death of Leopold, whose son and successor, Francis, was
but three-and-twenty years of age, gave fresh encouragement to his
sister's enemies. The intelligence had hardly reached Paris when Vergniaud
began to prepare the way for a fresh assault on the crown by a
denunciation of the ministers, while the Jacobins and Cordeliers made an
open attack upon another club which the Constitutionalists had lately
formed under the name of Les Feuillants, holding its meetings in a convent
of the Monks of St. Bernard,[2] and closed it by main force. Though
several soldiers, and La Fayette among them, were members of the
Feuillants, they made no resistance; they only applied to Petion, as mayor
of the city, for protection; and that worthy magistrate refused them aid,
telling them that though the law forbade them to be attacked, the voice of
the people was against them, and to that voice he was bound to listen.

The ministers fell before Vergniaud, and the unhappy king had no resource
but to choose their successors from the