How could she have any
thought of the idle suggestions of the voice of the baron, who had
been chosen as her companion because of his forty-five years, and of
his hair being tinged with gray?
"It seems to me, baron," she said, with a charming laugh, while
looking at a bird which, its song just ended, soared from the bushes
to the heavens--" it seems to me as if Nature wanted to send me a
greeting, and deputed this bird to bring it to me. Ah," she went on
to say, with quickly clouded brow, "it is really needful that I
should at times hear the friendly notes and the sweet melodies of
such a genuine welcome. I have suffered a great deal today, baron,
and the welcome of this bird of Trianon was the balm of many a wound
that I have received since yesterday."
"Your majesty was in Paris?" asked Besenval, hesitatingly, and with
a searching glance of his cunning, dark eyes, directed to the sad
countenance of Marie Antoinette.
"I was in Paris," answered she, with a flush of joy; "and the good
Parisians welcomed the wife of the king and the mother of the
children of France with a storm of enthusiasm."
"No, madame," replied the baron, reddening, "they welcomed with a
storm of enthusiasm the most beautiful lady of France, the adored
queen, the mother of all poor and suffering ones."
"And yet there was a dissonant note which mingled with all these
jubilee tones," said the queen, thoughtfully.
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