"The truth? is that what you have told?" exclaimed the Queen. "Heaven have mercy!"
"Yes, madam," said Gilbert, "and believe me that it is the lamp by which the throne and royalty will be prevented rolling into the abyss."
He bowed very humbly as he spoke, to the Queen, who appeared profoundly touched this time—by his humility or the reasoning?
The King rose with a decisive air as though determined on realization. But from his habit of doing nothing without consulting with his consort, he asked:
"Do you approve?"
"It must be," was her rejoinder.
"I am not asking for your abnegation but support to my belief."
"In that case I am convinced that the realm will become the meanest and most deplorable of all in Christendom."
"You exaggerate. Deplorable, I grant, but mean?"
"Your ancestors left you a dreary inheritance," said Marie Antoinette sorrowfully.