THE ROYAL CYCLE
If I were obliged to give this cycle a place proportioned to that
which it occupies in the somambulic life of Mlle. Smith, a hundred
pages would not suffice. But permit me to pass rapidly over facts
concerning which I should only be obliged to repeat the greater part of
the observations called forth by the preceding romances, which apply
equally well, _mutatis mutandis_, to the personification of Marie
Antoinette by Hélène.
The choice of this rôle is naturally explained by the innate tastes
of Mlle. Smith for everything that is noble, distinguished, elevated
above the level of the common herd, and by the fact that some exterior
circumstance fixed her hypnoid attention upon the illustrious queen
of France in preference to the many other historic figures equally
qualified to serve as a point of attachment for her subconscious
megalomaniac reveries.
In default of absolutely certain information on this point, I strongly
suspect the engraving from the _Memoirs of a Physician_, representing
the dramatic scene of the decanter between Balsamo and the Dauphiness,
of having given birth to this identification of Hélène with Marie
Antoinette, as well as to that of her secondary personality of Leopold
with Cagliostro.
We have, in fact, seen that this engraving (pp. 94-95), so well
calculated to impress the imagination, was shown to Mlle. Smith by Mme.
B. at the end of a seance—that is, at a moment when one is never sure
that Hélène’s return to her normal state is complete, and in which
her hypnoid personality, still on a level with consciousness, so to
speak, is very prone to absorb the interesting suggestions which the
environment may furnish. It was several months—a year and a quarter,
possibly—after this incident (the precise date of which, in 1892 or
1893, it is impossible to determine) that announcement was made by the
table, on the 30th of January, 1894, that Hélène was the reincarnation
of Marie Antoinette. It is to be recollected that in the interval she
had for some time believed herself to be the reincarnation of Lorenza
Feliciani; it is, however, to be noted that these two successive
identifications did not have the same guarantee or psychological
signification. In fact, it was Mlle. Smith, in the waking states—that
is, in her normal personality—who accepted the supposition of Mme. B.,
that she was the reincarnation of Lorenza; but the table—_i.e._, her
subconsciousness—always remained silent on this point. On the contrary,
the idea of having been Marie Antoinette does not seem to have occurred
to Hélène’s ordinary consciousness up to the time at which Leopold
revealed this secret, by the table. If any conclusion may be drawn from
this, it is that, under the multiple suggestions of the engraving from
Dumas’ works and the suppositions of Mme. B., the hypnoid imagination
of Mlle. Smith at first preferred to the rôle of Lorenza that of Marie
Antoinette, which is undoubtedly more flattering and more conformable
to Hélène’s temperament, and then elaborated and matured it, very
slowly, it is true, but not excessively so, in comparison with other
examples of subliminal incubations of Mlle. Smith.
From the point of view of its psychological forms of manifestation, the
Royal cycle from that time followed an evolution analogous to that of
its congeners described in the preceding chapters. After some months,
during which it unfolded itself in visions described by Hélène and
accompanied by typtological explanations dictated by the table, the
trance became more profound. Mlle. Smith began to personate the queen
in pantomime, of which Leopold gave the exact signification by digital
indications. Speech was added the year following, at a date which I
cannot fix, but the first occasion on which I was a witness to it was
on the 13th of October, 1895. Handwriting only made its appearance,
as far as I am aware, two years later (November 1, 1897, see Fig.
39), when the royal incarnation attained its apogee and Hélène was
in the habit of retaining in memory the somnambulistic rôle of Marie
Antoinette for several hours. Since then the rôle has maintained itself
at a very remarkable level of perfection, but it scarcely seems to me
progressing, and seems likely to become stereotyped. The objectivity
of the general type of queen must be distinguished in this brilliant
personality, or at least that of a lady of great distinction, as well
as a realization of the individual characteristics of Marie Antoinette
of Austria. As to the first point there is almost nothing left to be
desired. Mlle. Smith seems by nature to possess all that this rôle
demands, and hypnoid autosuggestion finds no lack of material upon
which to work.
[Illustration: Fig. 39. First known example of automatic irruption of
the orthography and handwriting called that of Marie Antoinette among
the normal writings of Mlle. Smith. Fragments of a letter of Hélène of
November 1, 1897, narrating a seance during which she had successfully
incarnated the queen of France and the Hindoo princess. [Collection of
M. Lemaître.] See also p. ]
When the royal trance is complete no one can fail to note the grace,
elegance, distinction, majesty sometimes, which shine forth in Hélène’s
every attitude and gesture.
She has verily the bearing of a queen. The more delicate shades of
expression, a charming amiability, condescending hauteur, pity,
indifference, overpowering scorn flit successively over her countenance
and are manifested in her bearing, to the filing by of the courtiers
who people her dream. The play of her hands with her real handkerchief
and its fictitious accessories, the fan, the binocle with long handle,
the scent-bottle which she carries in a pocket in her girdle; her
courtesyings, the movement, full of grace and ease, by which she never
forgets at each turning around, to throw back her imaginary train;
everything of this kind, which cannot be described, is perfect in its
ease and naturalness. Special personification of the unhappy Austrian
wife of Louis XVI. is of a less evident, and moreover doubtful,
accuracy. To judge of it from the only objective point of comparison
at our disposal, the handwriting (see Figs. 39 to 41), the Marie
Antoinette of Hélène’s somnambulisms little resembles her supposed
prototype, for there is less of difference between the autographs of
Cagliostro and of Leopold (see p. 109) than there is between that of
the real queen and that of her pretended reincarnation in Mlle. Smith,
the latter having a rounded, inclined calligraphy, much more regular
than in her normal state, instead of the angular and illegible writing
which was characteristic of the queen of France, to say nothing of the
glaring differences in formation of many letters. Some orthographic
analogies (Hélène writes _instans_, _enfans_, _étois_, etc.) have
nothing specific about them, and simply recall the general habits of
the last century (see p. 112).
[Illustration: Fig. 40. Writing of Mlle. Smith incarnating Marie
Antoinette. Seance of November 7, 1897. Beginning of a letter, written
in ink and addressed to Philippe d’Orléans (M. Aug. de Morsier, who
was not present at the seance). After the ink-stains of the last line,
Hélène threw down her pencil, then began again and finished her letter
in pencil in a still more regular and slanting hand than the above.]
[Illustration: Fig. 41. Writing and signature of Marie Antoinette.
Fragment of a letter written from the Temple to General de Jarnayes,
and reproduced in the _Isographie des Hommes célèbres_. [Collection
of fac-similes published under the direction of Duchesne, Sr., Paris,
1827-30.]]
Not having discovered any indication as to Marie Antoinette’s manner
of speaking, I do not know whether the hypnoid imagination of Hélène
has succeeded better than with the handwriting in adopting in her royal
incarnations certain intonations and a pronunciation which have nothing
of German in them, and would rather recall the English accent. The
timbre of her voice does not change, but her speech becomes trailing,
with a slight rolling of the _r_’s, and takes on something precise
and affected, very pretty, but slightly irritating by its length. We
already know that there is not an absolute wall of separation between
Hélène’s various trances. Just as is the case with the Martian and
the Hindoo, the handwriting or the spelling of the queen sometimes
slips into the correspondence of Mlle. Smith (see Fig. 39), and she
also sometimes assumes the accent of Marie Antoinette, if not in the
ordinary waking state (I do not know whether that is ever the case), at
least outside her Royal cycle, especially in the phases of transition
in which she begins or ends by incarnating Leopold, the Martians, etc.
(see, for example, p. 56).
From the point of view of its content, the Royal cycle forms a
collection of scenes and varied tableaux, like the Martian dream,
lacking any continuous plot, and in which marked historic events
scarcely hold a place—_e. g._, in it the queen is never seen to mount
the scaffold as Simandini ascends her funeral pile. One does not
always even know whether the spectacle before our eyes is supposed to
be the repetition, the exact recollection, of unknown but real episodes
in the life of Marie Antoinette, or indeed whether it has to do with
new, actual incidents passing now between the reincarnated queen and
her old acquaintances whom she discovers in the persons present at
the seance or in the disincarnate spirits in mediumistic relationship
with her. That depends on the case—_e. g._, on the 25th of December,
1896, Mlle. Smith, entranced, addresses touching exhortations to a lady
present whom she took for the Princess Lamballe, which, according to
Leopold, is a reproduction of the last evening which the unhappy queen,
sustained by her companion in captivity, passed in this world. (It is
true that at Christmas, 1792, the princess had already, three months
previously, fallen a victim to the massacres of September.) Again
the Abbé Grégoire dictates by the table, which bows significantly to
Hélène, “_I desired to save you, but I was not able_”; or the sinister
Hébert says to her by the same process, “_I was the cause of your
death.... I suffer; pray for me._” Ought we to consider real the homage
and the posthumous remorse which these two disincarnate spirits bring
after the lapse of a century to their sovereign, finally recognized in
the person of Mlle. Smith?
Generally it is impossible to decide whether the incident transpiring
pretends simply to republish the past or constitutes a new fact.
The location of the royal scenes and visions is often undetermined.
Many are located in the gardens or the apartments of the Petit Trianon,
and the furniture which Hélène describes there is, indeed, always pure
Louis XVI. More rarely Marie Antoinette is found at the Temple, or at
certain rendezvous—innocent, but very imprudent—in some secret abode in
Paris. She is never seen in Austria, since, unlike the Hindoo princess
still filled with her Arab memories, she seems to have completely lost
sight of her past as a young girl.
In the surroundings of the queen, the king is conspicuous by his
absence; very rarely she makes some allusions to him with a marked
indifference. The greater part of the personages known to that epoch,
whom I refrain from enumerating, figure in it incidentally, but there
are three who continually reappear and hold the first rank. There
is, first, the Count of Cagliostro, “_mon sorcier_,” or “_ce cher
sorcier_,” as the queen familiarly calls him, who never has enough of
his visits and his conversations, which are very varied, including
the discussion of philosophic subjects, such as the future life and
the existence of God as well as the gossip of the last _fête_ at
Versailles. There is, secondly, Louis Philippe d’Orléans (Equality);
while the third is the old Marquis de Mirabeau; all of whom, especially
the first, have served as hallucinatory interlocutors towards Hélène
in numerous scenes—up to the time at which, to the great amusement of
the sitters, the somnambulistic monologue was transformed into real
and lively conversation, in consequence of the introduction into the
seances of M. Eugène Demole, then of M. Aug. de Morsier, in whom
Marie Antoinette immediately recognized the two personages last above
mentioned.
Since this unexpected meeting with her two contemporaries,
reincarnated, like herself, the somnambulistic queen freely permits
herself, on occasion, the pleasure of renewing the little suppers and
joyous evenings of long ago. When a seance which has lasted from four
o’clock until seven in the afternoon seems to have come to an end,
and Mlle. Smith, after having awakened from a long series of Hindoo,
Martian, and other scenes, has been invited to dine and refresh
herself before taking up her household duties, it often happens that,
perceiving M. Demole or M. de Morsier among the persons present, she
gives a slight start, with a change of countenance, sometimes barely
perceptible, but which there is no mistaking; then, in her very
characteristic accent of Marie Antoinette, exclaims, “Oh, marquis, you
have been here, and I had not noticed you before!” And then follows a
somnambulistic vigil which may be prolonged until nearly ten o’clock in
the evening, maintained by means of the suggestive amiability of her
improvised companions in sustaining their rôles of Mirabeau or Philippe
d’Orléans.
They descend to the dining-room. The queen takes her place at the table
alongside of the marquis (or of Philippe). She has eyes and ears for
him alone, the other guests and the servants remaining shut out from
her dream. She eats and drinks only that which he sets before her, and
it is no sinecure to supply the wants of this august neighbor, since
she possesses a truly royal appetite. The amount of food which she
devours and the goblets of wine which she drinks off one after another,
without suffering any inconvenience, are astounding, as in her normal
state Mlle. Smith is sobriety itself and eats very little. After dinner
they pass into the _salon_, with many compliments and obeisances, and
Marie Antoinette takes coffee. On the first occasions of this kind,
she also accepted a cigarette from Philippe and smoked it—Mlle. Smith
never smokes in her waking state—but the remarks of the persons present
upon the historical untruthfulness of this feature must have been
registered, and bore fruit, since at the following seances she did
not seem to understand the use of tobacco in that form; she accepted,
on the other hand, with eagerness, a pinch of imaginary snuff, which
almost immediately brought about by autosuggestion a series of sneezes
admirably successful.
The evening passes in most varied conversation, until, evidently
feeling fatigue, the queen becomes silent, closes her eyes, and goes
to sleep in an easy-chair. At that instant Leopold, who gives no
sign of life, and from whom no response can be obtained during the
royal somnambulism, reappears and answers by the fingers or manifests
himself in spontaneous gestures. Hélène’s hand, _e. g._, is raised,
and makes passes on her forehead to accentuate the restorative sleep
which is about to bring her back to her normal state. At the end of
some time—half an hour or more—she awakes without any recollection of
the evening, believing that she has not yet dined, and complaining
of hunger and thirst, as if her stomachic sensibility participated
in the amnesia and other modifications which accompany the change of
personality. Nevertheless, at such times I have never seen her accept
anything more than a couple of glasses of water, after which she feels
wide awake.
In escorting her home, I was witness on one occasion to a return of the
royal somnambulism. She was exceedingly desirous of going to the house
of a well-known personage (whom she had perceived in her vision during
the seance), who had been received at the court of Marie Antoinette,
and who died in Geneva in the first quarter of this century; it was
only upon arriving before the house in which he had lived, and as
she was upon the verge of entering it, that I finally succeeded in
awakening and restoring her to herself, without memory of the incident,
and very much astonished at the unaccustomed streets in which we found
ourselves.
It is useless to give a more circumstantial narration of these dinners
and _soirées_ of Marie Antoinette. They are very entertaining for the
spectators, but lose much of their interest when related in their
entirety. Their details are exactly what might be expected of a lively
subliminal imagination, alert and full of verve, abundantly supplied,
on account of the illustrious queen, with notions still more easily
explicable, thanks to the intellectual atmosphere of France, than those
of the Hindoo cycle.
Numerous anachronisms, however, slip into them, and her Majesty
sometimes falls into the snares which the marquis or Philippe take
a malicious pleasure in setting for her. She often escapes them when
they are too clumsy, and, with a most comical display of temper, is at
first confused, then curiously questions, or manifests uneasiness in
regard to the mental state of her interlocutors when they introduce
the telephone, the bicycle, steamships, or the modern scientific
vocabulary into their eighteenth-century conversation. But, on the
other hand, she herself employs terms still more malapropos, such as,
“to derail” (figuratively), “metre” and “centimetre,” etc. Certain
words, such as “tramway” and “photography,” have occasioned serious
conflicts. Marie Antoinette first allows the treacherous word to pass
unnoticed, and it is evident that she perfectly understood it, but her
own reflection, or the smile of the sitters, awakens in her the feeling
of incompatibility; she returns to the word just used, and pretends a
sudden ignorance and astonishment in regard to it. Spiritism explains
these blunders by accusing the Machiavelian companions of the queen
of grossly abusing the suggestibility attached to the trance state by
jumbling her ideas and throwing her into confusion. Psychology is not
surprised that the subliminal imitation, however remarkable it may be,
presents some little defects, and every one is in accord in regard to
her thoughtless manner of expressing herself, in attributing these
anachronisms to an accidental mingling of the memories of her ordinary
personality and of the present life with those of the royal personality
revived during the somnambulism. In her rôle as queen, Mlle. Smith
gives evidence of a great deal of ingenuity. She is full of witty
repartées, which disconcert her interlocutors, the style of which is
sometimes perfectly after the manner of the epoch.
This ease and readiness of dialogue, excluding all reflective or
calculating preparation, denote a great freedom of mind and a wonderful
facility for improvisation. There are mixed with these, on the other
hand, some witticisms and episodes which are not at all impromptu,
but are the evident result of a preliminary elaboration in the course
of the subconscious reveries and various automatisms which the royal
romance causes to surge up in Hélène’s ordinary life.
There are some scenes whose development or repetition can be followed
in a series of seances and spontaneous visions as it passes through the
other cycles. The following is one example among many:
At the end of a seance at which M. de Morsier was present (October 10,
1897), Mlle. Smith enters into her dream of Marie Antoinette. During
dinner she makes several allusions to her son, the Dauphin, speaks of
her daughter, tells of having demanded of her sorcerer the sex of her
next child, etc.—matters all foreign to the conversation of Philippe,
and which seem to announce some underlying scene ready to break forth.
In fact, in the middle of the _soirée_ the queen becomes absorbed
and distrait, and finally falls on her knees in a dark corner of the
_salon_; her monologue indicates that she is before the cradle where
the little Dauphin and his sister are lying asleep. Presently she
returns to seek Philippe and to conduct him to admire the sleeping
children, to whom, in a very soft voice, she sings an unknown nursery
rhyme (“Sleep in peace,” etc.) of a plaintive melody analogous to that
of the Hindoo chant; the tears gush from her eyes; tender kisses upon
the imaginary cradle and a fervent prayer to the Virgin terminate this
extremely touching maternal scene.
Several weeks after (the 1st of December), a new romance makes its
appearance in a spontaneous access of visual, auditive, and graphic
automatism, the recital of which Hélène sent me the following day. That
evening, while alone with her mother, she had interrogated Leopold
upon an affair in which she was greatly interested, and had obtained
from him an answer: “As soon as his communication was ended, I saw
everything disturbed around me; then at my left, at a distance of about
thirty feet, a Louis XVI. _salon_, not very large, was outlined, in the
middle of which was a square piano, open. Before this piano was seated
a woman, still young, the color of whose hair I could not distinguish.
Whether it was blond or gray I could not clearly see. She played and
sang at the same time. The sounds of the piano, the voice even, reached
me, but I could not catch the words of the song. A young girl and a boy
stood on either side of the piano. Not far from them was seated a young
lady holding an infant on her lap.[27] This charming vision lasted a
very short time, not longer than ten minutes.”
After the disappearance of the vision, Hélène had the idea of taking
up her pencil. “With pencil in hand, I was asking myself what I should
write, when all at once I heard again the melody; then, this time very
distinctly, the words, but without any vision. The whole passed into my
head, into my brain, and instinctively I pressed my hand to my forehead
in order to hear and understand better. I felt myself compelled to hold
the pencil in a manner different from my habitual way of holding it.
Here are the words of the song heard and traced at that instant. As you
see, the handwriting is not like mine; there are also some very glaring
errors of orthography.”
“Approchez-vous approchez-vous | enfans chéris approchez-vous | quand
le printemps sur nous ramène | ses frais parfums ses rayons d’or
| venez enfans sous son haleine | gazouiller bas mes doux trésors
| approchez-vous approchez-vous | enfans chéris approchez-vous |
êtres chéris enfans bénis—approchez-vous de votre mère | son doux
baiser petits amis | calme et guérit toutes misères | approchez-vous
approchez-vous | enfans chéris approchez-vous.”[28]
Some months later the two preceding scenes were reproduced, with
variations of detail, on the same evening, during which Marie
Antoinette first conducts Philippe towards the fictitious cradle of her
cherubs and sings to them her first song: “Sleep in peace,” etc. Then
she leads him to the piano, and, displaying an imaginary sheet of music
beneath his eyes, obliges him to accompany her while she sings the
“Song of Elizabeth.”
M. de Morsier, who, fortunately, is not easily embarrassed, improvised
an accompaniment to which the queen accommodated herself after some
criticism, and to which she sings in a very sweet, pure voice some
words which were found to be, word for word, identical with those
automatically written by Hélène on the preceding 1st of December.
In this example is seen the mixture of preparation, of repetition,
and of impromptu, which are inferred from the varied incidents which
constitute the royal _soirées_.
It is probable that if it were possible to be a witness of, or if
Mlle. Smith could remember all the spontaneous automatisms which
aid in nourishing the royal romance, nocturnal dreams, hypnagogic
visions, subconscious reveries during the waking state, etc., there
would be presented interminable imaginary conversations with the
marquis, Philippe, Cagliostro, and all the fictitious personages who
occasionally make their appearance in the somnambulistic scenes of
Marie Antoinette.
It is by this underlying and unknown work, perhaps never interrupted,
that the personality of the queen of France is slowly prepared and
elaborated, and which shines forth and displays itself with so much of
magnificence in the _soirées_ with Philippe d’Orléans and the Marquis
de Mirabeau.
I have stated that, except these two gentlemen, who always form
part of the royal dream when they are present (and even sometimes
when absent), the others present at the seances are excluded. It is
understood that they do not pass unperceived on this account.
In the same manner as in the negative hallucinations or systematic
anæsthesia of hypnotized subjects, that which seems to be not felt
is nevertheless registered; so, in like manner, it is altogether
probable that nothing of that which passes around her escapes the
fundamental individuality of Mlle. Smith. The royal personality which
occupies the foreground of the scene and finds itself in an elective
_rapport_, limited to Philippe and the marquis, merely causes the
other personalities to be relegated to the background without breaking
their connection with the environment. There are many proofs of this.
For example, in walking, Marie Antoinette never runs against any of
the others present. The remarks and criticisms of the latter are not
lost upon her, since very frequently her conversation betrays their
influence after some minutes. At the same time, if any one pinches her
hand or tickles her ear, her lips, her nostrils, she seems anæsthetic;
still, at the end of a few seconds she turns her head away, and if
the tickling is persisted in, she experiences a kind of agitation
accommodated to the circumstances of her dream, changes her position on
some pretext, etc.
It is manifest, in short, that the excitations to which she seems to
be insensible at the moment, far from having no effect, are stored up
and produce, by their sum total, reactions which are retarded for some
minutes and which are intelligently adapted to the somnambulistic
scene, but with an intensity much more exaggerated than diminished by
this period of latency.
Music also affects her, precipitating her out of the dream of Marie
Antoinette into a common hypnotic state, in which she assumes
passionate attitudes, which have in them nothing of the regal, and
which conform to the varied airs which follow each other upon the piano.
In her phases as Marie Antoinette, Hélène has an accent characteristic
of it; she recognizes me vaguely; she has some allochiria, a complete
insensibility of the hands, and a large appetite; she does not know who
Mlle. Smith is; if she is asked to give the actual date, she replies
correctly as to the month and day, but indicates a year of the last
century, etc. Then all at once her state changes; the royal accent
gives way to her ordinary voice, she seems wide awake, all mental
confusion has disappeared, she is perfectly clear as to persons, dates,
and circumstances, but has no memory of the state from which she has
just emerged, and she complains of a sharp pain in her finger (where I
had pinched it while in her preceding phase). I took advantage one day
of these alternations to offer her a pencil, and dictated to her the
sentence of Fig. 42. In her normal moments she holds the pencil in her
accustomed manner, between the index and middle fingers, and writes in
her usual hand; during the returns of the royal somnambulism she holds
it between the thumb and index-finger and assumes her handwriting and
orthography known as that of Marie Antoinette, exactly as her voice
is invested with the accent. It is to be presumed that all her other
functions, if one could examine them, would show parallel analogous
variations, the changing of the personality being naturally accompanied
by connected changes not only of the memory and the sensibility, but of
motility of the emotional disposition—in brief, of all the faculties of
the individuality.
[Illustration: Fig. 42. Differences of handwriting of Mlle. Smith at
the end of an incarnation of Marie Antoinette, according to whether
she is in her normal state (upper lines, in her usual handwriting), or
in a return of the royal dream (lower lines; note the word _foisoit_).
Natural size. The tremor of some of the strokes is not in the
original, but occurred in the reproduction in ink.]
I must add that in each of her states Hélène has the memory of
preceding periods of the same kind, but not of another state: it was,
for example, necessary to dictate anew, for the second test, the
sentence of Fig. 42, which she did not remember having heard or written
a few minutes previously. This separation into distinct memories is
not, however, absolute, nor very profound: the personality of Marie
Antoinette is, in short, a modification—of an intensity and extent
which vary greatly with the seances—of the ordinary personality of
Mlle. Smith, rather than an alternating and exclusive personality, of
which so many striking cases have been observed.
For the mere spectators, the royal somnambulism is perhaps the most
interesting of all of Hélène’s cycles, on account of the brilliancy and
life of the rôle, the length of time during which it may be sustained,
the unexpected happenings which the presence of other real persons
brings into it. It is truly a comedy.
But for the lovers of the supernormal it is the least extraordinary
of the subliminal creations of Mlle. Smith, because the general
environment, being in France, is so imbued with historic or legendary
memories of the illustrious and unfortunate queen that there is nothing
surprising in the hypnoid reconstruction of a personage so well known.
Finally, the psychologist and moralist who undertakes to reflect on the
inner meaning of things cannot escape the impression of sharp contrast
as compared with reality which this sparkling romance affords.
In themselves, Mlle. Smith’s royal somnambulisms are almost always gay
and joyous; but, considering their hidden source, in so far as they
are the ephemeral and chimerical revenge of the ideal upon the real,
of impossible dreams upon daily necessities, of impotent aspirations
upon blind and crushing destiny, they assume a tragic signification.
They express the sensation lived through, felt, of the bitter irony
of things, of futile revolt, of fatality dominating the human being.
They seem to say that all happy and brilliant life is only an illusion
soon dissipated. The daily annihilation of the dream and the desire by
implacable and brutal reality cannot find in the hypnoid imagination
a more adequate representation, a more perfect symbol of an emotional
tonality, than her royal majesty whose existence seemed made for the
highest peaks of happiness and of fame—and ended on the scaffold.