"You had never the right to enter it at all. A retreat of this kind is improper for you; and woe to you, Antoinette, if ever another man beside myself should cross its threshold! It would give a coloring of truth to the evil reports of your powerful enemies."
"Gracious God of Heaven!" cried the queen, pale with horror, "what do they say of me?"
"It would avail you nothing to repeat their calumnies, poor child. I have come hither to warn you that some dark cloud hangs over the destiny of France. You must seek means to disperse it, or it will burst and destroy both you and your husband."
"I have already felt a presentiment of evil, dear brother, and for that very reason I come to these little simple rooms that I may for a few hours forget the destiny that awaits me, the court which hates and vilifies me, and in short—my supremest, my greatest sorrow—the indifference of my husband."
"Dear sister, you are wrong. You should never have sought to forget these things. You have too lightly broken down the barriers which etiquette, hundreds of years ago, had built around the Queens of France."
"This from YOU, Joseph, you who despise all etiquette!"
"Nay, Antoinette, I am a man, and that justifies me in many an indiscretion. I have a right to attend an opera-ball unmasked, but you have not."
"I had the king's permission, and was attended by my ladies of honor, and the princes of the royal family."
"An emperor may ride in a hackney-coach or walk, if the whim strike him, but not a queen, Antoinette. "
"That was an accident, Joseph. I was returning from a ball with the Duchess de Duras, when our carriage broke, and Louis was obliged to seek a hackney-coach or we would have returned to the palace on foot."