"We all listened politely.
"'She came, my friends,' he said, 'from Vienna, that Princess. Her bridegroom was the Dauphin of France. She, also, was beautiful.'
"He looked so solemn he took all the pleasure from our procession.
"A queer wrinkle came in his forehead and he looked almost like a revolutionist.
"'Many things have come to pass,' he said, 'since I first saw that Queen of France.'
"It was Marie Antoinette, I knew it, then. Poor lady, the wicked French have beheaded her.
"Monsieur de Paillot looked at me sternly.
"'These are troubled times,' he said. 'Old things are passing, new things are being born. Ours is a day of revolutions, of changes. There has been a struggle for liberty in America. I had the honour, as you know, of fighting with the noble Lafayette in the Colonies. I have seen Washington. I have talked with Thomas Jefferson, with the learned Franklin. You, here in Prussia, still have serfs, no constitution, and no patriotism. In America, the women went in homespun, the men starved at Valley Forge, and all for the rights of man. But here, pardon me, Madame, but is it not true that you borrow your language, your customs, everything from France? I fear that lovely young Princess may suffer.'
"Mother was furious. So was I. But Ludwig nodded.
"'You are right, Monsieur, quite right,' he said, and I think that horrid in him, even if he will be my husband.