Knowledge of Lady Atkyns’ devotion to the Royal House of France, of the sacrifices she had made, was widespread in the world of English society, and the Princess, having heard of her, was anxious to meet the woman, who, more fortunate than herself, had been able to afford some balm to the sufferings, to prevent which she would so willingly have given her life. The Duke of Queensberry brought about a meeting between the two ladies. What passed between them on this occasion? What questions did they exchange in their eager anxiety to learn something new about the Queen? Doubtless the most eager inquiries came from the Princess, and bore upon the achievements of Lady Atkyns, her visit to the Conciergerie, her talks with the illustrious prisoner. For weeks afterwards there was an interchange of letters between the two, in which is clearly disclosed the state of affectionate anxiety of the Princess’s mind. They address each other already by their Christian names, Louise and Charlotte. Lady Atkyns shows Mme. de Tarente the few souvenirs of the Queen she still possessed, the last lines the Queen wrote to her. It is touching to note, in reading their correspondence, how every day is to them an anniversary of some event in the life of the Queen, full of sweet or anguishing memories. “How sad I was yesterday!” writes the Princess. “It was the anniversary of a terrible day, when the Queen escaped assassination only by betaking herself to the King’s apartments in the middle of the night. Why did she escape? _To know you_--but for that the Almighty would surely have been kind enough to her to have let her fall a victim then.” For all the affection which surrounds her, Mme. de Tarente constantly bemoans her solitude. “I am in the midst of the world,” she writes, “yet all alone. Yesterday I longed so to talk of that which filled my poor heart, but there was none who would have understood me. So I kept my trouble to myself. I was like one of those figures you wind up which go for a time and then stop again. I kept falling to pieces and pulling myself together again. Ah, how sad life is!” In the summer of 1797 the Princess came to a momentous decision. The Emperor and Empress of Russia, whom she had known formerly at the French Court, having heard of her trials and of the not very enviable condition in which she was living, pressed her to come to Russia, where she would be cordially greeted. After long hesitation she decided to accept, but it was not without genuine heartburnings that she separated from her English friends, from her Charlotte most of all. She left London at the end of July, and arrived at St. Petersburg a fortnight later. Very soon afterwards she wrote Lady Atkyns an account of the journey and of her first impressions of her new surroundings.