M. de Chalabre at first denied, but on the Queens insisting confessed that it was the young Comte de , whose father was an ambassador, and was then abroad. The Queen desired him to keep the affair secret, and the next evening when the young Count approached the tables she said, smiling
ONE:Madame, do you know what it costs to wish for once in ones life to see the sun rise? Read that and tell me what you think of the poetry of our friends.
TWO:to which she had to answer:Eh! What! Then Athalie will never be played any more; that masterpiece will be lost to the French stage!
THREE:The camp of Dumouriez lay close at hand, and he had been very good to them; but there would probably be fighting very shortly, and it was said that he and many of his officers had been proscribed by the Convention. It would, she thought, be safer for Mademoiselle dOrlans to go and give herself up at Valenciennes, when she would most likely only be exiled, if that; than to be taken with Mme. de Genlis, as they would then be sent prisoners to Valenciennes and to the scaffold. And it was a great chance if they could pass the French posts.
