Note 260 — LOUIS XVI.

Ergaste is estrange in Pierre Rigaud’s edition. Ἐργαστήρ is a workman, and M. le Pelletier says Ergaster is Latin. It may be, but I do not find it in Facciolati, though ergastulum, a workhouse, is there given. When Marie Antoinette was in the Temple, she was reduced to working with her hands, like a workwoman (ergaste). But ergaste is the anagram of estrange, the one letter n excepted. Probably estrange is the preferable reading, inasmuch as Marie Antoinette was an Austrian, and so étrangère.