Marie Antoinette had always looked over the head of Madame du Barry; while the old King lived she had afforded her, under compulsion, a frozen tolerance; when she became Queen the favourite had been banished to a convent, utterly ignored and forgotten.
Yet on an impulse of loyalty Madame du Barry had come impetuously from London to endeavour to rescue the Queen whom she had always admired, whom she admired rather more perhaps for her constant lofty attitude of contempt towards herself; her placid, rather foolish mind had never resented the disdain of an Emperor’s daughter. She was very sorry that her attempt to serve the Queen had been frustrated; she resolved, when she was free, to make another endeavour, though she had already given nearly all the spoils of her years of plunder to help the refugees in England.…
The dusk began to fall; the room was shiveringly cold. No one came to her. She paced up and down the room to keep herself warm and beat her hands on her breast.
Suppose that, after all, they did mean to drag her out to the guillotine?
Many, many had gone already; many, many were yet to go–women as beautiful as herself, as innocent of offence towards the People.
At this thought her spirit shrieked aloud; she fell across the chair by the window and gazed frantically at the strip of darkening sky.
The smell of blood rose intolerably and clung to her nostrils; it reminded her that all her poor reasonings were of no avail, that this was an age of anarchy when none of the old arguments held good.
And she was in the power of creatures without pity, without justice, who stopped for nothing in their swift slaying.
But she would not accept this view; her mind rejected it. She could not and would not believe that she was meant for death.
Suddenly the jailer entered; she had meant to assail him with questions, arguments, reproaches, but when she saw him, though he had no particular appearance of brutality, she could not summon the courage to say one word.