Majesty the greatest blessing a king can bestow upon his subjects
--liberty. It is this blessing, Sir, which your Parliament come to ask
you to restore, in the name of a generous and faithful people. It is no
longer a prince of your blood, it is no longer two magistrates whom your
Parliament ask you to restore in the name of the laws and of reason, but
three Frenchmen, three men."

To peremptory demands were added perfidious insinuations.

"Such ways, Sir," said one of these remonstrances, "have no place in your
heart, such samples of proceeding are not the principles of your Majesty,
they come from another source." For the first time the queen was thus
held up to public odium by the Parliament which had dealt her a fatal
blow by acquitting Cardinal Rohan; she was often present at the king's
conferences with his ministers, reluctantly and by the advice of M. de
Brienne, for and in whom Louis XVI. never felt any liking or confidence.
"There is no more happiness for me since they have made me an intriguer,"
she said sadly to Madame Campan. And when the latter objected: "Yes,"
replied the queen, "it is the proper word: every woman who meddles in
matters above her lights and beyond the limits of her duty, is nothing
but an intriguer; you will remember, however, that I do not spare myself,
and that it is with regret I give myself such a title. The other day,
as I was crossing the Bull's Eye (_Eil de Boeuf_), to go to a private
committee at the king's, I heard one of the chapel-band say out loud,
'A queen who does her duty remains in her rooms at her needlework.'
I said to myself: 'Thou'rt quite right, wretch; but thou know'st not my
position; I yield to necessity and my evil destiny.'" A true daughter of
Maria Theresa in her imprisonment and on the scaffold, Marie Antoinette
had neither the indomitable perseverance nor the simple grandeur in
political views which had restored the imperial throne in the case of her
illustrious mother. She weakened beneath a burden too heavy for a mind
so long accustomed to the facile pleasures of youth. "The queen
certainly has wits and firmness which might suffice for great things,"
wrote her friend, the Count of La Marck, to M. de Mercy Argenteau, her
mother's faithful agent in France; "but it must be confessed that,
whether in business or in mere conversation, she does not always exhibit
that degree of attention and that persistence which are indispensable for
getting at the botto