alace was now indeed a scene of misery. The king's apathy was
degenerating into despair. At one time he was so utterly prostrated that
he remained for ten days absolutely silent, never uttering a word except
to name his throws when playing at backgammon with Elizabeth. At last the
queen roused him from his torpor, throwing herself at his feet, and
mingling caresses with her expostulations; entreating him to remember what
he owed to his family, and reminding him that, if they must perish, it was
better at least to perish with honor, and be king to the last, than to
wait passively till assassins should come and murder them in their own
rooms. She herself was in a condition in which nothing but her indomitable
courage prevented her from utterly breaking down. Sleep had deserted her.
By day she rarely ventured out-of-doors. Riding she had given up, and she
feared to walk in the garden of the Tuileries, even in the little portion
marked off for the dauphin's playground, lest she should expose herself to
the coarse insults which, the basest of hirelings were ever on the watch
to offer her.[7] She could not even venture to go openly to mass at
Easter, but was forced to arrange for one of her chaplains to perform the
service for her before daylight. Balked of their wish to offer her
personal insults, her enemies redoubled their diligence in inventing and
spreading libels. The demagogues of the Palais Royal revived the stories
of her subservience to the interests of Austria, and even sent letters
forged in her name to different members of the Assembly, inviting them to
private conferences with her in the apartments of Madame de Lamballe. But
she treated all such attacks with lofty disdain, and was even greatly
annoyed when she learned that the chief of the police, with the king's
sanction, had bought up a life of Madame La Mothe, in which that infamous
woman pretended to give a true account of the affair of her necklace, and
had had it burned in the manufactory of Sevres. She thought, with some
reason, that to take a step which seemed to show a dread of such attacks
was the surest way to encourage more of them, and that apparent
indifference to them was the only line of action consistent with her
innocence or with her dignity.

The increasing dangers of her position moved the pity of some who had once
been her enemies, and sharpened their desire to serve her. Barnave, who
probably overrated his present influence[8] in many letters