cter, which distinguished
Marie Antoinette. This is in itself a distinction quite sufficient to
detach friends from its possessor through envy. Besides, she was Queen
of France, the woman of highest rank in a most capricious, restless and
libertine nation. The two Princesses placed nearest to her, and who were
the first to desert her, though both very much inferior in personal and
mental qualifications, no doubt, though not directly, may have
entertained some anticipations of her place. Such feelings are not
likely to decrease the distaste, which results from comparisons to our
own disadvantage. It is, therefore, scarcely to be wondered at, that
those nearest to the throne should be least attached to those who fill
it. How little do such persons think that the grave they are thus
insensibly digging may prove their own! In this case it only did not by
a miracle. What the effect of the royal brothers' and the nobility's
remaining in France would have been we can only conjecture. That their
departure caused, great and irreparable evils we know; and we have good
reason to think they caused the greatest. Those who abandon their houses
on fire, silently give up their claims to the devouring element. Thus
the first emigration kindled the French flame, which, though for a while
it was got under by a foreign stream, was never completely, extinguished
till subdued by its native current.

The unfortunate Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette ceased to be Sovereigns
from the period they were ignominiously dragged to their jail at the
Tuileries. From this moment they were abandoned to the vengeance of
miscreants, who were disgracing the nation with unprovoked and useless
murders. But from this moment also the zeal of the Princesses Elizabeth
and de Lamballe became redoubled. Out of one hundred individuals and
more, male and female, who had been exclusively occupied about the person
of Marie Antoinette, few, excepting this illustrious pair, and the
inestimable Clery, remained devoted to the last. The saint-like virtues
of these Princesses, malice itself has not been able to tarnish. Their
love and unalterable friendship became the shield of their unfortunate
Sovereigns, and their much injured relatives, till the dart struck their
own faithful bosoms. Princes of the earth! here is a lesson of
greatness from the great.

Scarcely had the Princesse de Lamballe been reinstated in the Pavilion of
Flora at the Tuileries, when,