"Willingly, doctor, for I am tired. Give me your arm."
Gilbert bowed to have this high favor, most rarely granted by the sovereign, even to her intimate friends, especially since her misfortune.
When they were in her sitting-room he dropped on one knee to her as she took a seat in an arm-chair.
"Madame," said he, "let me adjure you, in the name of your august husband, your dear ones, your own safety, to make use of the forces about you, to flee and not to fight."
"Sir," was the reply, "since the fourteenth of July, I have been aspiring for the king to have his revenge; I believe the time has come. We will save royalty, or bury ourselves under the ruins of the Tuileries."
"Can nothing turn you from this fatal resolve?"
"Nothing."
She held out her hand to him, half to help him to rise, half to send him away. He kissed her hand respectfully, and rising, said:
"Will your majesty permit me to write a few lines which I regard as so urgent that I do not wish to delay one instant?"
"Do so, sir," she said, pointing to a writing-table, where he sat down and wrote these lines: