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 invectives against kings as tyrants seemed unjust and exaggerated, and had repelled her. To her mind, her mother, husband, and brothers were not selfish oppressors; they meant to be useful to their subjects, and would have been unwise to have rejected the wisdom of former times embodied in traditions and old customs. Moreover, any truths uttered by Voltaire were vitiated to the Queen by his declared hostility to religion as she knew it. Such overwhelming forces as were destroying France could not be the outcome of such feeble views; there must be stronger reasons than such writings could account for.

But here there was some tangle of ideas which could not be unravelled. The Queen's mind was not one to dwell on abstractions; it was wholly untrained and incapable of thinking out points of philosophical or religious argument. She could not disentangle the various points of view which distracted her mind.

As the long hours went on, her sorrows which admitted of no comfort: the strange impassiveness of the king: the sight of her weeping companions: the efforts of the children not to