“It is of my husband, I speak,” she said; “and that makes me forget myself. A kinder sovereign never lived, or one more willing to make all reasonable concessions. If I am earnest in saying this, it is because those who wish to serve Louis must understand all his goodness, all that he is willing to grant and to suffer. Believe me, I do not speak thus, Monsieur Count, because he is my husband—that would be a weak reason, when dealing with a statesman of France; but in this I only think of him as a sovereign and a Frenchman, loving his country and his people with more than the affection of a father.” Mirabeau looked upon the animation of that beautiful face with kindling admiration. He could appreciate the bright intellect which broke through all her sweetness and most feminine wiles. She was, in fact, a woman above all others to seize upon his imagination, and touch his wayward heart. “I would rather tell the people of France of their queen,” he said. Tears rushed to Marie Antoinette’s eyes. She clasped her hands in her lap. “Ah! they will never, never believe anything good of me; and I loved them so well—so well!” she said. “They shall be made to think everything that is good of you, or Mirabeau will have lost his power to carry the people with him,” cried the count, with enthusiasm. “Henceforth the man who does not worship Marie Antoinette is to me an enemy.” “Oh! I do not ask worship, only a little justice. Why will they distort every thing I say or do?” She was weeping in a soft, womanly way, that touched the heart of that man like the innocent cry of a child. “Why will the people of France not look upon their queen as a French woman. I came among them so young, so earnest to make them love me; but it is always the Austrian! the Austrian! As if it were a sin to be the daughter of Maria Theresa!” “Sweet lady! the people do not know you; their leaders do not know you. Up to this hour I have myself looked upon Marie Antoinette as the enemy of liberty—a stranger to France and her people.” “How can I help this? How can I undeceive a people who are determined to think ill of me?” cried the queen. “By letting them see their queen as I do; by granting all that can reasonably be conceded to them.” “But concession belongs to the king.” Mirabeau smiled more broadly than was becoming in the presence of his sovereign; but, during this whole interview, there had been so little of courtly ceremony, that the queen scarcely heeded it. The very act of her meeting any man in the solitude of that place, put court etiquette completely aside. “The king must be unlike inferior men, if he were not guided in most things by so fair and sweet a counsellor.” “That is hard,” answered the queen. “I can no more control the monarch of France than I can make the people love me.”