[CHAPTER XVIII.]
THE QUEEN AT BAY.
While the King was learning to fight Revolution like a philosopher, and recreate himself with a spiritualistic seance, the Queen was rallying the combative around her in her rooms.
She sat at a table, with priests, courtiers, generals and her ladies surrounding her. At the doorways young officers, full of ardor and courage, rejoiced in the riots which gave them a chance to show their military gifts as at a tourney under view of their queens of beauty.
The Queen was no longer the sweet girl whom we saw in our work entitled "Balsamo the Magician," or the fair princess who went to Mesmer's Baths, with Princess Lamballe: but the haughty and imperious Queen who was neither Marie Antoinette, nor Queen of France, but the Austrian Eagless.
She looked up as Prince Lambesq arrived, dusty, splashed, his boots torn and his sabre bent so as not to be sheathed properly.
"Well, my lord," she said, "You come from Paris. What are the people doing?"
"Killing and burning."