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Evil days were now coming for Marie Antoinette.  The affair of the diamond necklace had made powerful enemies; the Polignac family, taking the side of Vaudreuil and their protectress, were arrayed against her; France was rising on the tide of hate to sweep the Austrian and her husband from the throne.  The horrors of the Revolution were being loosed, and all who could were flying for safety to other lands.

At this terrible crisis the Queen’s thoughts were less for herself than for her friend of happier days.  She sought the Duchesse and begged her to fly while there was still time.  Then it was that, touched by such unselfish love, the Duchesse’s pride broke down, and all her old love for her sovereign lady returned in full flood.  Bursting into tears, she flung herself at Marie Antoinette’s feet, and begged forgiveness from the woman whose friendship she had spurned, and whose life she had, however innocently, done so much to ruin.

A few hours later the Duchesse, disguised as a chambermaid and sitting by the coachman’s side, was making her escape from France in company with her husband and other members of her family, while the Queen who had loved her so well was left to take the last tragic steps that had the guillotine for goal.

Just before the carriage started on its long and perilous journey, a note was thrust into the “chambermaid’s” hand—­“Adieu, most tender of friends.  How terrible is this word!  But it is necessary.  Adieu!  I have only strength left to embrace you.  Your heart-broken Marie.”

Then ensued for the Duchesse a time of perilous journeying to safety.  At Sens her carriage was surrounded by a fierce mob, clamouring for the blood of the “aristos.”  “Are the Polignacs still with the Queen?” demanded one man, thrusting his head into the carriage.  “The Polignacs?” answered the Abbe de Baliviere, with marvellous presence of mind.  “Oh! they have left Versailles long ago.  Those vile persons have been got rid of.”  And with a howl of baffled rage the mob allowed the carriage to continue its journey, taking with it the most hated of all the Polignacs, the chambermaid, whose heart, we may be sure, was in her mouth!

Thus the Duchesse made her way through Switzerland, to Turin, and to Rome, and to Venice, where news came to her of the fall ot the monarchy and Louis’ execution.  By the time she reached Vienna on her restless wanderings, her health, shattered by hardships and by her anxiety for her friend, broke down completely.  She was a dying woman; and when, a few months later, she learned that Marie Antoinette was also dead—­“a natural death,” they mercifully told her—­“Thank God!” she exclaimed; “now, at last, she is free from those bloodthirsty monsters!  Now I can die in peace.”

Seven weeks later the Duchesse drew her last breath, with the name she still loved best in all the world on her lips.  In death she and her beloved Queen were not divided.