her family, while the Queen who
had loved her so well was left to take the last tragic steps that had
the guillotine for goal.

Just before the carriage started on its long and perilous journey, a
note was thrust into the "chambermaid's" hand--"Adieu, most tender of
friends. How terrible is this word! But it is necessary. Adieu! I have
only strength left to embrace you. Your heart-broken Marie."

Then ensued for the Duchesse a time of perilous journeying to safety.
At Sens her carriage was surrounded by a fierce mob, clamouring for the
blood of the "aristos." "Are the Polignacs still with the Queen?"
demanded one man, thrusting his head into the carriage. "The Polignacs?"
answered the Abbe de Baliviere, with marvellous presence of mind. "Oh!
they have left Versailles long ago. Those vile persons have been got rid
of." And with a howl of baffled rage the mob allowed the carriage to
continue its journey, taking with it the most hated of all the
Polignacs, the chambermaid, whose heart, we may be sure, was in her
mouth!

Thus the Duchesse made her way through Switzerland, to Turin, and to
Rome, and to Venice, where news came to her of the fall ot the monarchy
and Louis' execution. By the time she reached Vienna on her restless
wanderings, her health, shattered by hardships and by her anxiety for
her friend, broke down completely. She was a dying woman; and when, a
few months later, she learned that Marie Antoinette was also dead--"a
natural death," they mercifully told her--"Thank God!" she exclaimed;
"now, at last, she is free from those bloodthirsty monsters! Now I can
die in peace."

Seven weeks later the Duchesse drew her last breath, with the name she
still loved best in all the world on her lips. In death she and her
beloved Queen were not divided.

CHAPTER XXV

THE RIVAL SISTERS

It was an unkind fate that linked the lives of the fifteenth Louis of
France and Marie Leczinska, Princess of Lorraine, and daughter of
Stanislas, the dethroned King of Poland; for there was probably no
Princess in Europe less equipped by nature to hold the fickle allegiance
of the young French King, and no Royal husband less likely to bring
happiness into the life of such a consort.

When Princess Marie was called to the throne of France, she found
herself transported from one of the most penurious and obscure to the
most splendid of the Courts of Europe--"frightened and overwhelmed," as
de Goncourt tells us, "by the gran