If people could not live in the palace, the best thing {298}that could befall them was to die in it. The resignation was not accepted. The language of the medical men became stronger and stronger. Dr. Burney’s parental fears were fully roused; and he explicitly declared, in a letter meant to be shown to the Queen, that his daughter must retire. The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat. “A scene almost horrible ensued,” says Miss Burney. “She was too much enraged for disguise, and uttered the most furious expressions of indignant contempt at our proceedings. I am sure she would gladly have confined us both in the Bastile, had England such a misery, as a fit place to bring us to ourselves, from a daring so outrageous against imperial wishes.” This passage deserves notice, as being the only one in the Diary, so far as we have observed, which shows Miss Burney to have been aware that she was a native of a free country, that she could not be pressed for a waiting maid against her will, and that she had just as good a right to life, if she chose, in Saint Martin’s Street, as Queen Charlotte had to live at Saint James’s. The Queen promised that, after the next birthday, Miss Burney should be set at liberty. But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty showed great displeasure at being reminded of it. At length Frances was informed that in a fortnight her attendance should cease. I “heard this,” she says, “with a fearful presentiment I should surely never go through another fortnight, in so weak and languishing and painful a state of health.... As the time of separation approached, the Queen’s cordiality rather diminished, and traces of internal displeasure appeared sometimes, arising from an opinion I ought rather to have struggled on, live or die, than to quit her. Yet I am sure she saw how poor was my own {299}chance, except by a change in the mode of life, and at least ceased to wonder, though she could not approve.” Sweet Queen! What noble candour, to admit that the undutifulness of people, who did not think the honour of adjusting her tuckers worth the sacrifice of their own lives, was, though highly criminal, not altogether unnatural!