25
TWO QUEENS.
The announcement of Louis XV.'s mortal illness found an echo even in the secluded life of the humble engraver's family. Writing to her friend at Amiens on the 9th May 1774, Manon remarks: "Although the obscurity of my birth, name and position seem to preclude me from taking any interest in the Government, yet I feel that the common weal touches me in spite of it. My country is something to me, and the love I bear it is most unquestionable. How could it be otherwise, since nothing in the world is indifferent to me. I am something of a cosmopolitan, and a love of humanity unites me to everything that breathes. A Caribbean interests me; the fate of a Kaffir goes to my heart. Alexander wished for more worlds to conquer; I could wish for others to love." Magnificent humanitarian cry to have burst from the lips of this lovely recluse of twenty!
And while a young girl on the Quai de l'Horloge felt the deep stirrings of a woman's heart for a people whose suffering condition she had not apprehended as yet, another girl—also in her first bewitching bloom—ascended the throne of France, and was hailed by
