was her best support.  Miserable as she was, hopeless as she was, it was characteristic of her magnanimous courage that she did not long give way to womanly lamentations.  She recollected that she had still duties to perform to the living, to her daughter and sister, and, above all, to her son, now her king, whom, if some happier change of fortune, when the nation should have recovered from its present madness, should replace him on his father’s throne, it must be her care to render worthy of such a restoration.  She began to apply herself diligently to the work of giving him lessons such as his father had given him, mingling them with the constant references to that father’s example, which she never ceased to hold up to him, dwelling with the emphatic exaggeration of lasting affection on his gentleness, his benevolence, his love for his subjects; qualities which, in truth, he had possessed in sufficient abundance, had he but been gifted with the courage and firmness indispensable to secure to his people the benefits he wished them to enjoy.

She had too, for a time, another occupation.  The princess royal was, as she had said not long before, of an age to feel keenly the miseries of her parents, and the agitation into which she had been thrown had its natural effect upon her health.  Her own language on the subject affords a striking proof how well Marie Antoinette had succeeded in imbuing her with her own forgetfulness of self.  As she has recorded the occurrence in her journal, “Fortunately her affliction increased her illness to so serious a degree as to cause a favorable diversion to her mother’s despair.[3]”

Youth, however, and a strong constitution prevailed, and the little princess recovered; while other matters also for a time claimed a large share of her mother’s attention.  For herself, Marie Antoinette felt, as she well might feel, that, come what would, happiness and she were forever parted; and the death to which she never doubted that her enemies destined her could hardly have been anticipated by her as any thing but a relief, if she had thought only of her own feelings.  But, again, she had others to think of besides herself—­of her children.  And she presently learned that others were thinking of her, and were willing (it should rather be said were eager and proud) to encounter any danger, if they might only have the happiness and honor of securing and saving her whom they still regarded as their queen.  Two had long been attached to the royal household:  the wife of M. de Jarjayes, a gentleman of ancient family in Dauphine, had been one of Marie Antoinette’s waiting-women, and he himself, since the fatal expedition to Varennes, had been employed by Louis on several secret missions.  From the moment that his royal master was brought before the Convention he had despaired of his life, and had, therefore, bent all his thoughts on the preservation of the queen.  M. Turgy, the second, was in a humbler rank of life.  He was, as we have seen,