wives and families, from an only brother and sister with helpless infant
children, at the hour of danger, we cannot help wishing for a little
plebeian disinterestedness in exalted minds. 

I have travelled Europe twice, and I have never seen any woman with that
indescribable charm of person, manner, and character, which distinguished
Marie Antoinette.  This is in itself a distinction quite sufficient to
detach friends from its possessor through envy.  Besides, she was Queen
of France, the woman of highest rank in a most capricious, restless and
libertine nation.  The two Princesses placed nearest to her, and who were
the first to desert her, though both very much inferior in personal and
mental qualifications, no doubt, though not directly, may have
entertained some anticipations of her place.  Such feelings are not
likely to decrease the distaste, which results from comparisons to our
own disadvantage.  It is, therefore, scarcely to be wondered at, that
those nearest to the throne should be least attached to those who fill
it.  How little do such persons think that the grave they are thus
insensibly digging may prove their own! In this case it only did not by
a miracle.  What the effect of the royal brothers' and the nobility's
remaining in France would have been we can only conjecture.  That their