ster to a brother
situated as he then was, and that she requested he would take whatever
might be necessary to discharge his debts at Paris and defray the expenses
of his journey. She told me also to desire he would bring his. friend
Bertrand with him, and to make him the same offer.

The two Guards came at the appointed hour, and accepted, I think, each one
or two hundred louis. A moment afterwards the Queen opened my door; she
was accompanied by the King and Madame Elisabeth; the King stood with his
back against the fireplace; the Queen sat down upon a sofa and Madame
Elisabeth sat near her; I placed myself behind the Queen, and the two
Guards stood facing the King. The Queen told them that the King wished to
see before they went away two of the brave men who had afforded him the
strongest proofs of courage and attachment. Miomandre said all that the
Queen's affecting observations were calculated to inspire. Madame
Elisabeth spoke of the King's gratitude; the Queen resumed the subject of
their speedy departure, urging the necessity of it; the King was silent;
but his emotion was evident, and his eyes were suffused with tears. The
Queen rose, the King went out, and Madame Elisabeth followed him; the
Queen stopped and said to me, in the recess of a window, "I am sorry I
brought the King here! I am sure Elisabeth thinks with me; if the King
had but given utterance to a fourth part of what he thinks of those brave
men they would have been in ecstacies; but he cannot overcome his
diffidence."

The Emperor Joseph died about this time. The Queen's grief was not
excessive; that brother of whom she had been so proud, and whom she had
loved so tenderly, had probably suffered greatly in her opinion; she
reproached him sometimes, though with moderation, for having adopted
several of the principles of the new philosophy, and perhaps she knew that
he looked upon our troubles with the eye of the sovereign of Germany
rather than that of the brother of the Queen of France.

The Emperor on one occasion sent the Queen an engraving which represented
unfrocked nuns and monks. The first were trying on fashionable dresses,
the latter were having their hair arranged; the picture was always left in
the closet, and never hung up. The Queen told me to have it taken away;
for she was hurt to see how much influence the philosophers had over her
brother's mind and actions.

Mirabeau had not lost the hope of becoming the last resource