We always dread most that which is nearest to us, and the triumph of the emigration only promised them a throne, disputed by the regent who had restored it.

This gratitude appeared to them a disgrace, and they knew not whether they had most to hope or to apprehend from the emigres.
The queen, in her conversations with her friends, spoke of them with more bitterness than confidence.

The king loudly complained of the disobedience of his brothers, and dissuaded from flight all those who demanded his advice; but his advice was as changeable as events; like all men balancing between hope and fear, he alternately bent and stood erect beneath the pressure of circumstances.

His acts were culpable, but not his intentions; it was not the king who conspired, but the man, the husband, the father, who sought by foreign aid to ensure the safety of his wife and children; and he alone became criminal when all seemed desperate.

The "tangled thread" of negotiation was incessantly broken off and renewed: that which was resolved yesterday was to-morrow disavowed; and the secret negotiators of these plots, armed with credentials and powers which had been recalled, yet continued to employ them, in spite of the king's orders, to carry on in his name those plans of which he disapproved.