"Do you believe that this prospect makes us recede?" queried the proud one, quickly rising.
"I know the King is brave and the Queen heroic; so I never try to do anything with them but reason; unfortunately I can never pass my belief into their minds."
"Why trouble about what you believe useless?"
"Because it is my duty. It is sweet in such times to feel, though the result is unfruitful, that one has done his duty."
She looked him in the face and asked:
"Do you think it possible to save the King and the throne?"
"I believe for him and hope for the other."
"Then you are happier than I," she responded with a sad sigh: "I believe both are lost and I fight merely to salve my conscience."
"Yes, I understand that you want a despotic monarchy and the King an absolute one: like the miser who will not cast away a portion of his gold in a shipwreck so that he may swim to shore with the rest, you will go down with all. No, cut loose of all burdens and swim towards the future."
"To throw the past into a gulf is to break with all the crowned heads of Europe."