about to return to you will explain the reasons which
have detained him so long. He will also tell you that at present I do not
dare to receive him in my own apartment. Yet it would have been very
pleasant to talk to him about you, to whom I am so tenderly attached. No,
my princess, while I feel all the kindness of your offers, I can not
accept them. I am vowed for life to my duties, and to those beloved
persons whose misfortunes I share, and who, whatever people may say of
them, deserve to be regarded with interest by all the world for the
courage with which they support their position. The bearer of this letter
will be able to give you a detailed account of what is going on at
present, and of the spirit of this place where we are living. I hear that
he has seen much, and has formed very correct ideas. May all that we are
now doing and suffering one day make our children happy! This is the only
wish that I allow myself. Farewell, my princess; they have taken from me
every thing except my heart, which will always remain constant in its love
for you. Be sure of this; the loss of your love would be an evil which I
could not endure. I embrace you tenderly. A thousand compliments to all
yours. I am prouder than ever of having been born a German."

In her mention of the 14th of July as likely to bring fresh dangers, she
is alluding to the announcement of an intention of the Jacobins to hold a
fresh festival to commemorate the destruction of the Bastile on the
anniversary of that exploit; a celebration which she had ample reason to
expect would furnish occasion for some fresh tumult and outrage. And we
may remark that in one of these letters she rests her whole hope on
foreign assistance; while in the other, she rejects foreign aid to escape
from her almost hopeless position. But the key to her feeling in both
cases is one and the same. Above all things she was a devoted, faithful
wife and mother. To herself and her own safety she never gave a thought.
Her first duty, she rightly judged, was to the king, and she looked to
such a manifesto as she desired Austria and Prussia to issue, backed by
the movements of a powerful army, as the measure which afforded the best
prospect of saving her husband, who could hardly be trusted to save
himself; while, for the very same reason, she refused to fly without him,
even though flight might have saved her children, her son and heir, as
well as herself, because it would have increased her h