The queen seated herself on a divan that curved in with the walls of the temple. Mirabeau followed, and stood near her; but she swept the folds of her dress together, and motioned that he should take the place by her side. “This is honor, better still, happiness,” he said, accepting the seat. “How often, fair queen, have I wondered why you kept me from you. Never in the world had sovereign a more devoted subject.” Marie Antoinette sighed heavily; she began to comprehend how much power had been flung away in keeping this man from the court. She could appreciate now the wonderful influence he possessed with the people. She answered him graciously, “cannot the past, with its mistakes, be forgotten? Of all people in the world, a sovereign is most likely to be deceived with regard to those who surround him. We were led——” Mirabeau forgot that it was the queen who spoke, and with the same impetuous roughness which made his popularity with the people, broke in upon her half-finished sentence. “You were led to believe me wild, unprincipled, selfish; a man who belonged to the people only because he was rejected by his own class. Part of this is true, but more false. Had you deigned to call me to your aid, madame, a more devoted slave would not have lived.” Marie Antoinette sat in supreme astonishment. How was she to reach this man—through his greatness or through his sins? For the first time in her queenly life this woman doubted herself. In Mirabeau she saw the two contending elements which already distracted France—the refinements of the court and the fierce strength of its antagonists, inordinate self-love and ready self-abasement. She knew at once that her intellect, clear and acute as it was, could not cope with his; but in those soft flatteries of look and speech, that undermine and persuade, she was more than a match for any man or woman of France. Men who do not like to be convinced are the most easily persuaded. “They have, indeed misled us,” she answered, leaning gently toward the man, who turned upon her for the instant with the gleam of a wild beast in his eyes; but the look softened beneath her glance, and the upright form bent imperceptibly toward her. “I will not say how many cruel things have poisoned the ear of my august husband, or wounded my own self-love.” Here Mirabeau started to his feet. “Have they dared to hint that I ever whispered one word against your highness as a queen, and the loveliest woman in Europe?” “Perhaps I have heard worse than that.” “Worse than that? Nay, then, I should have been the brute they call me. Tell me, your highness, who my traducers are?” “Forgive me if I withhold all such knowledge. If Count Mirabeau is to be our friend, he must not exhaust himself in private quarrels.” “If I am to be your friend, madame? Who ever knew Mirabeau war against a woman?”