"Let us sit, if it pleases you," said Marie Antoinette, motioning the princess to an arm-chair, while she took her own place upon a simple ottoman. "You have something to say to me, and I am entirely ready to hear you."
"Would to God, madame, that you would not only hear my words," said Madame Adelaide, with a sigh, "but that you would take them to heart as well!"
"If they deserve it, I certainly shall," said the queen, smiling.
"They certainly do deserve it," said the princess, "for what I aim at in my words concerns the peace, the security, the honor of our family. Madame, allow me first to disburden myself of something that has been committed to me. My noble and pious sister, Madame Louise, has given me this letter for your majesty, and in her name I ask our royal niece to read the same at once and in my presence."
She drew from the great reticule, which was attached to her arm by its silken cords, a sealed letter, and handed it to the queen.
But Marie Antoinette did not raise her hand to receive it, but shook her head as if in refusal, and yet with so eager a motion that her elaborate coiffure fairly trembled.
"I beg your pardon, madame," said she, earnestly, "but I cannot receive this letter from the prioress of the Carmelite convent at St. Denis; for you well know that when Madame Louise sent me some years ago, through your highness, a letter which I read, that I never again will receive and read letters from the prioress. Have the goodness, then, to take this back to the sender."
"You know, madame, that this is an affront directed against a princess of France!" was the emphatic reply.
"I know, madame, that that letter which I then received from Madame Louise was an affront directed by the princess against the Queen of France, and I shall protect the majesty of my station from a similar affront. Unquestionably this letter is similar in tone to that one. That one contained charges which went so far as to involve open condemnation, and contained proffers of counsel which meant little less than calumny. [Footnote: Gondrecourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 59.] And what would this be likely to contain different, which your highness takes the trouble to bring to me?"
"Well," cried Madame Adelaide, angrily, "its purport may be similar to that of the former letter; for, unfortunately, the causes are the same, and we may not wonder if the effects are also the same."