ady--your Majesties have but to follow the instructions--to
don the disguises prepared--once at Courbevoie all is secure," she says,
speaking with the greatest energy and confidence and clasping the
Queen's hand in her own.

Suddenly her Majesty started up. "Never--never!" she bursts out,
beginning to pace up and down the small chamber. "Never will I again go
through with the humiliation of flight and capture. Better death or
imprisonment at the hands of this ungrateful, mad people!"

"But, your Majesty--" says Beaufort, beginning to speak, but the Queen
interrupted him.

"I know what you would tell me, Beaufort," she stopped and spoke
imperiously--"that this scheme is the best possible one, the only one,
perhaps; that in this enterprise lies our only safety, but I cannot
believe it! A thousand times would I rather trust myself to the allies!"
she said, beginning to pace the floor again.

"I think 'tis not that alone which Monsieur de Beaufort would tell your
Majesty," said Adrienne, rising from beside the chair where the Queen
had been sitting. She stood straight and tall before the desperate Queen
and spoke rapidly. "He would say, also, that there is a handful of brave
gentlemen who have risked their lives to serve your Majesties, who are
waiting now but a few miles away and the further opportunity of serving
you. Every moment adds to their peril. Should your Majesties fail them,
what will become of them?" She threw out her hands with an appealing
gesture.

"'Tis true," murmured the King. "It must not be said that we sacrificed
the last of our friends," he said, smiling a little bitterly and looking
at the Queen, who continued to pace the little room in the cruellest
agitation.

"I pray your Majesties not to think of us," said Beaufort. "Your devoted
friends and servants think only of what is best for your Majesties. 'Tis
their opinion, as well as my own, that there is nothing left but
flight."

"Never, never!" exclaimed the Queen, with increasing firmness.

"But think of the danger of remaining in Paris!" urged Beaufort. "We
know not at what moment this insurrection prepared by the Jacobins may
burst out, we know not at what moment this palace and the sacred persons
of your Majesties may be at the mercy of an infuriated, insensate mob."

"Let them come--these dangers--these horrors," says the Queen,
intrepidly; "they will bring Brunswick and the allies that much sooner
to this Paris which I will not leave