She, loving pleasure above all things, cared only to be the most brilliant centre of a brilliant circle. She wanted the treasury to be full, that she might lavish gifts on her friends, and live extravagantly herself.
Sometimes she acquiesced in reforms, when they appeared inevitable; more often, when she thought the royal authority was menaced, she restrained the king, and drove away the popular ministers.
The queen was walking on the terrace at Marly, with her inseparable friend, the Princess de Lamballe, a little fair-haired, soft-eyed, pretty creature, and Madame Elizabeth, the sister of the king, who had left her charming villa at Montreuil to assist the queen in turning Louis from the Liberal party towards that of the Court.
Madame Elizabeth was a noble woman, with a firm lip and eye, very like her brother, but with a refinement and a determination foreign to his face. None doubted the purity of her intentions, and her devotion to what she believed to be the right cause, though, unfortunately, she was mistaken in her appreciation of events.
Afterwards, when the king and queen were in peril, and all their friends took refuge in voluntary exile from probable death, she hesitated for a moment whether to follow her aunts or to remain with the prisoners.
'What! will you desert us?' asked the queen. Elizabeth instantly resolved on sharing their fate; and on the 9th May, 1794, her head fell on the scaffold.
'There is my little flower-girl,' said the queen, as Madeleine Chabry appeared with her basket of roses, and Gabrielle near her; 'but do look, sister, at the funny little peasantess at her side!'
'She is a Normande, your majesty,' said Mademoiselle de Lamballe; 'I know the cap well enough.'
'It is picturesque,' observed the queen; 'I should like to examine it closer. Suppose I were to adopt it, and set the fashion?'