also very uneasy as to what would take place at Paris during the interval, and spoke to me of the King’s want of energy, but always in terms expressive of her veneration for his virtues and her attachment to himself.—­“The King,” said she, “is not a coward; he possesses abundance of passive courage, but he is overwhelmed by an awkward shyness, a mistrust of himself, which proceeds from his education as much as from his disposition.  He is afraid to command, and, above all things, dreads speaking to assembled numbers.  He lived like a child, and always ill at ease under the eyes of Louis XV., until the age of twenty-one.  This constraint confirmed his timidity.

“Circumstanced as we are, a few well-delivered words addressed to the Parisians, who are devoted to him, would multiply the strength of our party a hundredfold:  he will not utter them.  What can we expect from those addresses to the people which he has been advised to post up?  Nothing but fresh outrages.  As for myself, I could do anything, and would appear on horseback if necessary.  But if I were really to begin to act, that would be furnishing arms to the King’s enemies; the cry against the Austrian, and against the sway of a woman, would become general in France; and, moreover, by showing myself, I should render the King a mere nothing.  A queen who is not regent ought, under these circumstances, to remain passive and prepare to die.”

The garden of the Tuileries was full of maddened men, who insulted all who seemed to side with the Court.  “The Life of Marie Antoinette” was cried under the Queen’s windows, infamous plates were annexed to the book, the hawkers showed them to the passersby.  On all sides were heard the jubilant outcries of a people in a state of delirium almost as frightful as the explosion of their rage.  The Queen and her children were unable to breathe the open air any longer.  It was determined that the garden of the Tuileries should be closed:  as soon as this step was taken the Assembly decreed that the whole length of the Terrace des Feuillans belonged to it, and fixed the boundary between what was called the national ground and the Coblentz ground by a tricoloured ribbon stretched from one end of the terrace to the other.  All good citizens were ordered, by notices affixed to it, not to go down into the garden, under pain of being treated in the same manner as Foulon and Berthier.  A young man who did not observe this written order went down into the garden; furious outcries, threats of la lanterne, and the crowd of people which collected upon the terrace warned him of his imprudence, and the danger which he ran.  He immediately pulled off his shoes, took out his handkerchief, and wiped the dust from their soles.  The people cried out, “Bravo! the good citizen for ever!” He was carried off in triumph.  The shutting up of the Tuileries did not enable the Queen and her children to walk in the garden.  The people on the terrace sent forth dreadful shouts, and she was twice compelled to return to her apartments.