'Bernay,' answered Elizabeth.
'Has come all the way from Bernay; and what do you think is her object? She has read the fable of the mouse and the netted lion, and she thinks she can get the wife of the Intendant of Paris out of the Bastille.'
'I venture to suggest that she should be driven out of your majesty's presence,' said the bishop; 'this is too audacious, too insolent to be tolerated. We are beginning to discover that the people are utterly lost to the sense of decency and modesty. Let her be turned out.'
'Not if I choose to listen to her history,' answered the queen, sharply, glad to cross her chaplain, whom she despised, whilst she sought to retain him about her.
'By all means,' said De Narbonne; 'but if your majesty will condescend to allow me to make a remark,—I am well, I may say very well, acquainted with M. Berthier, and his most amiable father M. Foulon, Bernay being in my diocese, and my desire ever being to make myself acquainted with all the influential laity in it. I have seen much of those two most estimable gentlemen, and I appreciate their urbanity of manner equally with their moral excellence.'
'That is rather a different account from what we have received from this girl,' said the queen; 'perhaps you are inclined to take too favourable a view of their conduct. What about Madame Berthier? Do you know her?'
'I cannot say that I know more of her than this, that she is a maniac, and as such is obliged to be kept in custody. Berthier himself told me once that she assaulted him with a knife.'
'Madame and Monsieur!' exclaimed Gabrielle; 'you do not know the reason of that. I was there when that took place; she defended me.'
'Defended you!' echoed the queen; 'who did she defend you from?'
Gabrielle became crimson; she hung her head and whispered, 'from her husband.'