tears came into her eyes when I talked of
Monsieur Necker. As the dark days drew nearer I loved more and more to
be in the seclusion of the country at Montmery, at the St. Gre of my
girlhood. I can see St. Gre now," said the Vicomtesse, "the thatched
houses of the little village on either side of the high-road, the
honest, red-faced peasants courtesying in their doorways at our berline,
the brick wall of the park, the iron gates beside the lodge, the long
avenue of poplars, the deer feeding in the beechwood, the bridge over
the shining stream and the long, weather-beaten chateau beyond it. Paris
and the muttering of the storm were far away. The mornings on the sunny
terrace looking across the valley to the blue hills, the walks in the
village, grew very dear to me. We do not know the value of things, Mr.
Ritchie, until we are about to lose them."

"You did not go back to court?" I asked.

She sighed.

"Yes, I went back. I thought it my duty. I was at Versailles that
terrible summer when the States General met, when the National Assembly
grew out of it, when the Bastille was stormed, when the King was
throwing away his prerogatives like confetti. Never did the gardens of
the Trianon seem more beautiful, or more sad. Sometimes the Queen would
laugh even then when I mimicked Bailly, Des Moulins, Mirabeau. I
was with her Majesty in the gardens on that dark, rainy day when the
fishwomen came to Versailles. The memory of that night will haunt me as
long as I live. The wind howled, the rain lashed with fury against
the windows, the mob tore through the streets of the town, sacked the
wine-shops, built great fires at the corners. Before the day dawned
again the furies had broken into the palace and murdered what was left
of the Guard. You have heard how they carried off the King and Queen to
Paris--how they bore the heads of the soldiers on their pikes. I saw it
from a window, and I shall never forget it."

Her voice faltered, and there were tears on her lashes. Some quality in
her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke
that I started when she had finished. There was much more I would have
known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave
her pain. At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before.
She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions
of the hopes I had dared to entertain, left me picturing sadly the
existence of which she ha