Mademoiselle was delighted to see me, and always believed we had made our passage so safely in consequence of the respect paid to her and her carriage.  It was a strange day; no one did anything but run about and hear or tell news of how the people in Paris were taking the departure of the Court, and wonder when the troops would come up to begin the siege, or, what was more pressing, what was to be done for food and for bedding?  We ate as we could.  Eggs and fowls were brought in from the farms, but plates and dishes, knives and forks, were very scarce.  Some of us were happy when we could roast an egg in the embers for ourselves, and then eat it when it was hard enough, and I thought how useful Annora would have been, who had done all sorts of household work during the troubles at home.  But we were very merry over these devices.

The night was a greater difficulty.  Most of the windows had no frames nor glass in them, and hardly any one had a bed.  Mademoiselle slept in a long gallery, splendidly painted and gilt, but with the wind blowing at every crevice through the shutters, no curtains; only a few marble tables against the wall by way of furniture, and the mattress spread upon the floor for her and her youngest sister, who would not sleep unless she sang, and who woke continually.

I rolled up my two little boys in my great fur cloak, which I had happily brought with me, for no one seemed disposed to take any charge of poor little Mericour, and Nicolas fetches me the cushions from the carriage, so that they were tolerably comfortable.

As to us ladies and gentlemen, we rejoiced that at least faggots could be had.  We made up a great fire, and sat round it, some playing at cards, other playing at games, telling stories, or reciting poetry, interspersed with the sillier pastime of love-making.  Every one nodded off to sleep, but soon to wake again,—­and, oh, how still we were, and how our bones ached after two such nights!

And the saddest and most provoking thing, at least to many of us, was the high spirits of the Queen-Regent.

To be sure, she had not been without a bed in an unglazed room all night, and had a few maids and a charge of clothes, but she had probably never been so much out of reach of state in her life, and she evidently found it most amusing.  She did not seem to have an idea that it was a fearful thing to begin a civil war, but thought the astonishment and disappointment of the Parisians an excellent joke.  Grave and stately as she was by nature, she seemed quite transformed, and laughed like a girl when no gold spoon could be found for her chocolate and she had to use a silver one.  Yes, and she laughed still more at the ill-arranged limp curls and tumbled lace of us poor creatures who had sat up all night, and tried to dress one another, with one pocket-comb amongst us all!

All that day and all the text, however, parts of different people’s equipages kept coming from Paris.  Mademoiselle’s were escorted by M. de Fiesque, who had been so civilly treated that Mademoiselle gave passports for the Queen’s wagons to come through Paris; and it was considered to be a great joke that one of the bourgeois, examining a large box of new Spanish gloves, was reported to have been quite overcome by the perfume, and to have sneezed violently when he came to examine them.