estranging them and usurping all the favors of
the queen. When the outside world was accrediting to Marie Antoinette
every popular misfortune, when she lost by death both the dauphin
and the Princess Beatrice, when fate was against her, when the future
promised nothing but evil, she found no stauncher friend, better
consoler, more ardent admirer, than her old companion. Learning of the
removal of the royal family to the Tuileries, she rejoined the queen.
In 1791, with the escape of the royal fugitives, the princess left
for England, to seek the protection of the English government for her
royal friends.

Mr. Dobson says she was scarcely the _discrete et insinuante et
touchante Lamballe_, with a marvellous sang-froid, hardly the astute
diplomatist, that De Lescure makes her. "She was rather the quiet,
imposing Lamballe of old, interested in her friends and what she
could do for them, but never shrewd and diplomatic." In November she
returned to France, to meet her queen and to suffer death for her
sake,--and for this unswerving devotion she has a place in history.
She stands out also as the one normal woman in the crowds of
impetuous, shallow, petty, and, in many cases, pitifully debauched
women of the time. Not majestic greatness, but a direct, unaffected
sweetness and consistent goodness entitle her to rank among the great
women of France.

CHAPTER XIII

WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION AND THE EMPIRE

Many women of the revolutionary period have no claim for mention other
than a last glorious moment on the guillotine--"ennobled and endeared
by the self-possession and dignity with which they faced death, their
whole life seems to have been lived for that one moment." The society
which had brought on and stirred up the Revolution was enervated and
febrile. Paris was one large kennel of libellers and pamphleteers and
intriguers. The salon frequenters were trained conversationalists and
brilliant beauties who danced and drank, discoursed and intrigued.
It was a superficial elegance, with virtue only assumed. The art of
pleasing had been developed to perfection, but, instead of the actual
accomplishments of the old regime, there was merely the outward
appearance--luxury, dress, and magnificence; the bearing and language
were of the ambitious common people. "The great women are those who,
the day before, were taken from the cellar or garret of the salon."

During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost a