ast rendered
more intolerable by her inability to fill up her time.--This does not
arise from a deficiency of understanding, but from never having been
accustomed to think. Her mind resembles a body that is weak, not by
nature, but from want of exercise; and the number of years she has passed
in a convent has given her that mixture of childishness and romance,
which, my making frivolities necessary, renders the mind incapable of
exertion or self-support.

Oct. 20.

The unfortunate Queen, after a trial of some days, during which she seems
to have behaved with great dignity and fortitude, is no longer sensible
of the regrets of her friends or the malice of her enemies. It is
singular, that I have not yet heard her death mentioned in the prison
--every one looks grave and affects silence. I believe her death has not
occasioned an effect so universal as that of the King, and whatever
people's opinions may be, they are afraid of expressing them: for it is
said, though I know not with what truth, that we are surrounded by spies,
and several who have the appearance of being prisoners like ourselves
have been pointed out to me as the objects of this suspicion.

I do not pretend to undertake the defence of the Queen's imputed faults--
yet I think there are some at least which one may be very fairly
permitted to doubt. Compassion should not make me an advocate for guilt
--but I may, without sacrificing morals to pity, venture to observe, that
the many scandalous histories circulated to her prejudice took their rise
at the birth of the Dauphin,* which formed so insurmountable a bar to the
views of the Duke of Orleans.--

* Nearly at the same time, and on the same occasion, there were
literary partizans of the Duke of Orleans, who endeavoured to
persuade the people that the man with the iron mask, who had so long
excited curiosity and eluded conjecture, was the real son of Louis
XIII.--and Louis XIV. in consequence, supposititious, and only the
illegitimate offspring of Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria--that
the spirit of ambition and intrigue which characterized this
Minister had suggested this substitution to the lawful heir, and
that the fears of the Queen and confusion of the times had obliged
her to acquiesce:

"Cette opinion ridicule, et dont les dates connues de l'histoire
demontrent l'absurdite, avoit eu des partisans en France--elle
tendoi