"Her tresses do not suit her," said the Dauphiness, to my great surprise.
From her sofa, Madame saw through the window what was happening outside: she named the ladies and gentlemen walking. Came two little horses, with two grooms dressed in the Scotch fashion; Madame ceased working, looked long and said:
"It is Madame——-[I forget the name] going into the mountains with her children."
Marie-Thérèse curious, knowing the habits of the neighbourhood, the Princess of thrones and scaffolds descending from the heights of her life to the level of other women, interested me singularly; I watched her with a sort of philosophic tenderness.
At five o'clock, the Dauphiness went out driving; at seven, I was back for the evening gathering. The same arrangement: Madame on the sofa, the guests of the dinner and five or six young and old water-drinkers enlarged the circle. The Dauphiness made touching, but visible efforts to be gracious; she addressed a word to every one. She spoke to me several times, making a point of calling me by my name to make me known; but she became absent-minded again after each sentence. Her needle multiplied its movements, her face drew nearer to her embroidery; I saw the Princess's profile and was struck by a sinister resemblance: Madame has begun to look like her father; when I saw her head lowered under the blade of sorrow, I thought that I saw Louis XVI.'s head awaiting the fall of the blade. At half-past eight, the evening ended; I went to bed overcome by sleep and lassitude.
On Friday the 31st of May[621], I was up at five o'clock; at six, I went to the Mühlenbad: the men and women water-drinkers crowded round the spring, walked under the gallery of wooden pillars, or in the garden next to the gallery. Madame la Dauphine arrived, dressed in a shabby grey silk gown; she wore a thread-bare shawl on her shoulders and an old hat on her head. She looked as though she had mended her clothes, as her mother did at the Conciergerie. M. O'Heguerty, her equerry, gave her his arm. She mixed with the crowd and handed her cup to the women who draw the water from the spring. No one paid any attention to Madame la Comtesse de Marnes[622]. Maria Theresa, her grandmother, in 1762, built the house known as the Mühlenbad: she also presented Carlsbad with the bells which were to call her grand-daughter to the foot of the Cross.
Madame having entered the garden, I went up to her: she seemed surprised at this courtier-like flattery. I had seldom risen so early for royal personages, except, perhaps, on the 13th of February 1820, when I went to look for the Duc de Berry at the Opera. The Princess allowed me to take five or six turns round the garden by her side, talked kindly and told me that she would receive me at two o'clock and give me a letter. I left her, out of discretion; I breakfasted hurriedly and spent the time remaining to me in visiting the valley.
Carlsbad.
Carlsbad, 1 June 1833.
As a Frenchman, I found none but painful memories at Carlsbad. The town takes its name from Charles IV.[623] King of Bohemia, who came here to be cured of three wounds received at Crécy, while fighting beside his father John. Lobkowitz pretends that John was killed by a Scotchman, a circumstance not known to the historians: