I did not speak; Madame la Dauphine kept silence: I could hear the pricking of the needle and the drawing of the wool as the Princess passed it smartly through the canvas, on which I saw some tears fall. The illustrious victim of misfortune wiped them from her eyes with the back of her hand and, without raising her head, said:
"How is my sister? She is very unhappy, very unhappy. I am very sorry for her, I am very sorry for her."
These brief and repeated phrases failed to open a conversation for which neither of the two interlocutors could find the necessary expressions. The redness of the Dauphine's eyes, caused by the habit of tears, gave her a beauty which made her look like the Spasimo Virgin.
"Madame," I replied at last, "Madame la Duchesse de Berry is very unhappy, without a doubt; she has charged me to come to place her children under your protection during her captivity. It is a great relief to think that Henry V. finds a second mother in Your Majesty."
Pascal was right to connect the greatness and wretchedness of man: who would have believed that Madame la Dauphine attached any value, to those titles of Queen, of Majesty, which were so natural to her and of which she had known the vanity? Well, the word Majesty was, nevertheless, a magic word; it beamed upon the Princess's forehead, from which, for a moment, it removed the clouds: they soon returned to place themselves there like a diadem.
"Oh no, no, Monsieur de Chateaubriand," said the Princess, looking at me and ceasing her work, "I am not Queen."
"You are, Madame, you are, by the laws of the realm: Monseigneur le Dauphin was able to abdicate only because he was King. France looks upon you as her Queen, and you will be the mother of Henry V."
The Dauphiness discussed no longer: this little weakness, by making her a woman again, veiled the glamour of so many different greatnesses, gave them a sort of charm and brought them into closer connexion with the human condition.
I read out my credentials, in which Madame la Duchesse de Berry declared her marriage to me, ordered me to go to Prague, asked to be allowed to keep her title as a French Princess and placed her children in her sister's care.