The silence of the royal couple was the only thing which worried him. The Queen broke this by sending Isidore, and vague as were the words he repeated, they acquired weight from coming out of a royal mouth.
At nine the young viscount went to Lady Lamballe’s.
Count Provence was uneasy; Count Louis Narbonne walked about with the ease of a man quite at home among princes. Isidore was not known to any of the circle of the princes’ bosom friends, but his well-known name and the partiality accorded him by the princess led to all hands being held out to him.
Besides, he brought news from the foreign refuge where so many had relatives.
When he had delivered his budget, the conversation returned to its former channel; the young men were laughing about a machine for executing criminals which Dr. Guillotin had shown in a full size working model and had proposed to the National Assembly.
When an usher announced the King, and another the Queen, of course all the merriment and chatter ceased.
The more the revolutionary spirit stripped majesty of its eternals the more the true royalists vied with each other to pour evidences of respect upon the august chiefs. 1789 saw great ingratitude, but 1793 great devotion.
To talk over the Favras scheme in secret a whist party was made up of the two rulers, Provence and Charny for the fourth hand. Respect isolated the table.
“Brother,” said the Queen, “Lord Charny, who comes from Turin, says that our kinsfolk there are begging us to join them.”
The King gave a stamp with impatience.