"Oh no, no. Were you satisfied with his health?"
"He seemed to me to be wonderfully well; he looks delicate and a little pale."
"He often has a nice colour; but he is nervous. Monsieur le Dauphin is very much esteemed in the army, is he not? Very much esteemed? They remember him, do they not?"
This abrupt question, which had no connection with what we had just been saying, revealed to me a secret wound which the days of Saint-Cloud and Rambouillet had left in the heart of the Dauphiness. She brought up her husband's name in order to reassure herself: I hastened to anticipate the thought of the Princess and wife; I declared, and with truth, that the army had never forgotten the impartiality, the virtues, the courage of its Commander-in-Chief.
Seeing that the hour for walking had come:
"Your Majesty has no more orders to give me? I am afraid of being troublesome."
"Tell your friends of the love I bear to France; let them well understand that I am a Frenchwoman. I charge you particularly to say that; you will do me a pleasure in saying it: I regret France much, I regret France very much."
"Ah, Madame, what has that France not done to you? How can you, who have suffered so much, continue to feel 'home-sick?'"
"No, no, Monsieur de Chateaubriand, do not forget it, be sure to tell them all that I am a Frenchwoman, that I am a Frenchwoman."
Madame left me; I was obliged to stop on the stair-case before going out; I would not have dared to show myself in the street; my tears still moisten my eyelids as I retrace this scene.