The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the
Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five
louis.
[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis
had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting
her and me, and led to her death.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she
would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly
should decree for her prison. I then returned home to prepare everything
that might be necessary for me to accompany her.
On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the
Feuillans. I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being
admitted. I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission
which had been given to me; I was again refused. I was told that the
Queen had as many people as were requisite about her. My sister was with
her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the
Abbaye on the 11th. I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and
entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to
whom I addressed myself.
I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple. I
went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place
in the post-office, and who was devoted to me. He determined to go up to
Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen's first woman, the
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four
hours.
From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.
The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio
which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again.
The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government
were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties.
They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked. The infamous Robespierre
bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen's private secretary, and said
that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure
part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important
papers. In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a
solitary letter from the Comte d'Artois, which, by its date, and the
subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued
correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the
trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son's had studied with
Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the
connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan,
required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death
of the latter. The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in
1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. "well,
then," resumed Robespierre, "bring me the certificate of his burial at
twelve to-morrow; it is a document for which I have pressing occasion."
Upon hearing the deputy's demand I instantly sent for a certificate of M.
Campan's burial, and Robespierre received it at nine o'clock the next
morning. But I considered that, in thinking of my father-in-law, they
were coming very near me, the real depositary of these important papers.
I passed days and nights in considering what I could do for the best under
such circumstances.
I was thus situated when the order to inform against those who had been
denounced as suspected on the 10th of August led to domiciliary visits. My
servants were told that the people of the quarter in which I lived were
talking much of the search that would be made in my house, and came to
apprise me of it. I heard that fifty armed men would make themselves
masters of M. Auguies house, where I then was. I had just received this
intelligence when M. Gougenot, the King's maitre d'hotel and
receiver-general of the taxes, a man much attached to his sovereign, came
into my room wrapped in a ridingcloak, under which, with great difficulty,
he carried the King's portfolio, which I had entrusted to him. He threw
it down at my feet, and said to me, "There is your deposit; I did not
receive it from our unfortunate King's own hands; in delivering it to you
I have executed my trust." After saying this he was about to withdraw. I
stopped him, praying him to consult with me what I ought to do in such a
trying emergency. He would not listen to my entreaties, or even hear me
describe the course I intended to pursue. I told him my abode was about
to be surrounded; I imparted to him what the Queen had said to me about
the contents of the portfolio. To all this he answered, "There it is;
decide for yourself; I will have no hand in it." Upon that I remained a
few seconds thinking, and my conduct was founded upon the following
reasons. I spoke aloud, although to myself; I walked about the room with
agitated steps; M. Gougenot was thunderstruck. "Yes," said I, "when we
can no longer communicate with our King and receive his orders, however
attached we may be to him, we can only serve him according to the best of
our own judgment. The Queen said to me, 'This portfolio contains scarcely
anything but documents of a most dangerous description in the event of a
trial taking place, if it should fall into the hands of revolutionary
persons.' She mentioned, too, a single document which would, under the
same circumstances, be useful. It is my duty to interpret her words, and
consider them as orders. She meant to say, 'You will save such a paper,
you will destroy the rest if they are likely to be taken from you.' If it
were not so, was there any occasion for her to enter into any detail as to
what the portfolio contained? The order to keep it was sufficient.
Probably it contains, moreover, the letters of that part of the family
which has emigrated; there is nothing which may have been foreseen or
decided upon that can be useful now; and there can be no political thread
which has not been cut by the events of the 10th of August and the
imprisonment of the King. My house is about to be surrounded; I cannot
conceal anything of such bulk; I might, then, through want of foresight,
give up that which would cause the condemnation of the King. Let us open
the portfolio, save the document alluded to, and destroy the rest." I
took a knife and cut open one side of the portfolio. I saw a great number
of envelopes endorsed by the King's own hand. M. Gougenot found there the
former seals of the King,
[No doubt it was in order to have the ancient seals ready at a moment's
notice, in case of a counter-revolution, that the Queen desired me not to
quit the Tuileries. M. Gougenot threw the seals into the river, one from
above the Pont Neuf, and the other from near the Pont Royal.--MADAME
CAMPAN.]
such as they were before the Assembly had changed the inscription. At
this moment we heard a great noise; he agreed to tie up the portfolio,
take it again under his cloak, and go to a safe place to execute what I
had taken upon me to determine. He made me swear, by all I held most
sacred, that I would affirm, under every possible emergency, that the
course I was pursuing had not been dictated to me by anybody; and that,
whatever might be the result, I would take all the credit or all the blame
upon myself. I lifted up my hand and took the oath he required; he went
out. Half an hour afterwards a great number of armed men came to my
house; they placed sentinels at all the outlets; they broke open
secretaires and closets of which they had not the keys; they 'searched the
flower-pots and boxes; they examined the cellars; and the commandant
repeatedly said, "Look particularly for papers." In the afternoon M.
Gougenot returned. He had still the seals of France about him, and he
brought me a statement of all that he had burnt.
The portfolio contained twenty letters from Monsieur, eighteen or nineteen
from the Comte d'Artois, seventeen from Madame Adelaide, eighteen from
Madame Victoire, a great many letters from Comte Alexandre de Lameth, and
many from M. de Malesherbes, with documents annexed to them. There were
also some from M. de Montmorin and other ex-ministers or ambassadors.
Each correspondence had its title written in the King's own hand upon the
blank paper which contained it. The most voluminous was that from
Mirabeau. It was tied up with a scheme for an escape, which he thought
necessary. M. Gougenot, who had skimmed over these letters with more
attention than the rest, told me they were of so interesting a nature that
the King had no doubt kept them as documents exceedingly valuable for a
history of his reign, and that the correspondence with the Princes, which
was entirely relative to what was going forward abroad, in concert with
the King, would have been fatal to him if it had been seized. After he
had finished he placed in my hands the proces-verbal, signed by all the
ministers, to which the King attached so much importance, because he had
given his opinion against the declaration of war; a copy of the letter
written by the King to the Princes, his brothers, inviting them to return
to France; an account of the diamonds which the Queen had sent to Brussels
(these two documents were in my handwriting); and a receipt for four
hundred thousand francs, under the hand of a celebrated banker. This sum
was part of the eight hundred thousand francs which the Queen had
gradually saved during her reign, out of her pension of three hundred
thousand francs per annum, and out of the one hundred thousand francs
given by way of present on the birth of the Dauphin.
This receipt, written on a very small piece of paper, was in the cover of
an almanac. I agreed with M. Gougenot, who was obliged by his office to
reside in Paris, that he should retain the proces-verbal of the Council
and the receipt for the four hundred thousand francs, and that we should
wait either for orders or for the means of transmitting these documents to
the King or Queen; and I set out for Versailles.
The strictness of the precautions taken to guard the illustrious prisoners
was daily increased. The idea that I could not inform the King of the
course I had adopted of burning his papers, and the fear that I should not
be able to transmit to him that which he had pointed out as necessary,
tormented me to such a degree that it is wonderful my health endured the
strain.
The dreadful trial drew near. Official advocates were granted to the
King; the heroic virtue of M. de Malesherbes induced him to brave the most
imminent dangers, either to save his master or to perish with him. I hoped
also to be able to find some means of informing his Majesty of what I had
thought it right to do. I sent a man, on whom I could rely, to Paris, to
request M. Gougenot to come to me at Versailles he came immediately. We
agreed that he should see M. de Malesherbes without availing himself of
any intermediate person for that purpose.
M. Gougenot awaited his return from the Temple at the door of his hotel,
and made a sign that he wished to speak to him. A moment afterwards a
servant came to introduce him into the magistrates' room. He imparted to
M. de Malesherbes what I had thought it right to do with respect to the
King's papers, and placed in his hands the proces-verbal of the Council,
which his Majesty had preserved in order to serve, if occasion required
it, for a ground of his defence. However, that paper is not mentioned in
either of the speeches of his advocate; probably it was determined not to
make use of it.
I stop at that terrible period which is marked by the assassination of a
King whose virtues are well known; but I cannot refrain from relating what
he deigned to say in my favour to M. de Malesherbes:
"Let Madame Campan know that she did what I should myself have ordered her
to do; I thank her for it; she is one of those whom I regret I have it not
in my power to recompense for their fidelity to my person, and for their
good services." I did not hear of this until the morning after he had
suffered, and I think I should have sunk under my despair if this
honourable testimony had not given me some consolation.