On my arrival at Paris on the 25th of August I found the state of feeling
there much more temperate than I had dared to hope. The conversation
generally ran upon the acceptance of the constitution, and the fetes which
would be given in consequence. The struggle between the Jacobins and the
constitutionals on the 17th of July, 1791, nevertheless had thrown the
Queen into great terror for some moments; and the firing of the cannon
from the Champ de Mars upon a party which called for a trial of the King,
and the leaders of which were in the very bosom of the Assembly, left the
most gloomy impressions upon her mind.
The constitutionals, the Queen's connection with whom was not slackened by
the intervention of the three members already mentioned, had faithfully
served the royal family during their detention.
"We still hold the wire by which this popular mass is moved," said Barnave
to M. de J----- one day, at the same time showing him a large volume, in
which the names of all those who were influenced with the power of gold
alone were registered. It was at that time proposed to hire a
considerable number of persons in order to secure loud acclamations when
the King and his family should make their appearance at the play upon the
acceptance of the constitution. That day, which afforded a glimmering
hope of tranquillity, was the 14th of September; the fetes were brilliant;
but already fresh anxieties forbade the royal family to encourage much
hope.
The Legislative Assembly, which had just succeeded the Constituent
Assembly (October, 1791), founded its conduct upon the wildest republican
principles; created from the midst of popular assemblies, it was wholly
inspired by the spirit which animated them. The constitution, as I have
said, was presented to the King on the 3d of September, 1791. The
ministers, with the exception of M. de Montmorin, insisted upon the
necessity of accepting the constitutional act in its entirety. The Prince
de Kaunitz--[Minister of Austria]--was of the same opinion. Malouet wished
the King to express himself candidly respecting any errors or dangers that
he might observe in the constitution. But Duport and Barnave, alarmed at
the spirit prevailing in the Jacobin Club,
[The extreme revolutionary party, so called from the club, originally
"Breton," then "Amis de la Constitution," sitting at the convent of the
Dominicans (called in France Jacobins) of the Rue Saint Honore.]
and even in the Assembly, where Robespierre had already denounced them as
traitors to the country, and dreading still greater evils, added their
opinions to those of the majority of the ministers and M. de Kaunitz;
those who really desired that the constitution should be maintained
advised that it should not be accepted thus literally. The King seemed
inclined to this advice; and this is one of the strongest proofs of his
sincerity.
Alexandre Lameth, Duport, and Barnave, still relying on the resources of
their party, hoped to have credit for directing the King through the
influence they believed they had acquired over the mind of the Queen. They
also consulted people of acknowledged talent, but belonging to no council
nor to any assembly. Among these was M. Dubucq, formerly intendant of the
marine and of the colonies. He answered laconically in one phrase:
"Prevent disorder from organising itself."
The letter written by the King to the Assembly, claiming to accept the
constitution in the very place where it had been created, and where he
announced he would be on the 14th September at mid-day, was received with
transport, and the reading was repeatedly interrupted by plaudits. The
sitting terminated amidst the greatest enthusiasm, and M. de La Fayette
obtained the release of all those who were detained on account of the
King's journey [to Varennes], the abandonment of all proceedings relative
to the events of the Revolution, and the discontinuance of the use of
passports and of temporary restraints upon free travelling, as well in the
interior as without. The whole was conceded by acclamation. Sixty
members were deputed to go to the King and express to him fully the
satisfaction his Majesty's letter had given. The Keeper of the Seals
quitted the chamber, in the midst of applause, to precede the deputation
to the King.
The King answered the speech addressed to him, and concluded by saying to
the Assembly that a decree of that morning, which had abolished the order
of the Holy Ghost, had left him and his son alone permission to be
decorated with it; but that an order having no value in his eyes, save for
the power of conferring it, he would not use it.
The Queen, her son, and Madame, were at the door of the chamber into which
the deputation was admitted. The King said to the deputies, "You see
there my wife and children, who participate in my sentiments;" and the
Queen herself confirmed the King's assurance. These apparent marks of
confidence were very inconsistent with the agitated state of her mind.
"These people want no sovereigns," said she. "We shall fall before their
treacherous though well-planned tactics; they are demolishing the monarchy
stone by stone."
Next day the particulars of the reception of the deputies by the King were
reported to the Assembly, and excited warm approbation. But the President
having put the question whether the Assembly ought not to remain seated
while the King took the oath "Certainly," was repeated by many voices;
"and the King, standing, uncovered." M. Malouet observed that there was
no occasion on which the nation, assembled in the presence of the King,
did not acknowledge him as its head; that the omission to treat the head
of the State with the respect due to him would be an offence to the
nation, as well as to the monarch. He moved that the King should take the
oath standing, and that the Assembly should also stand while he was doing
so. M. Malouet's observations would have carried the decree, but a deputy
from Brittany exclaimed, with a shrill voice, that he had an amendment to
propose which would render all unanimous. "Let us decree," said he, "that
M. Malouet, and whoever else shall so please, may have leave to receive
the King upon their knees; but let us stick to the decree."
The King repaired to the chamber at mid-day. His speech was followed by
plaudits which lasted several minutes. After the signing of the
constitutional act all sat down. The President rose to deliver his
speech; but after he had begun, perceiving that the King did not rise to
hear him, he sat down again. His speech made a powerful impression; the
sentence with which it concluded excited fresh acclamations, cries of
"Bravo!" and "Vive le Roi!"--"Sire," said he, "how important in our eyes,
and how dear to our hearts--how sublime a feature in our history--must be
the epoch of that regeneration which gives citizens to France, and a
country to Frenchmen,--to you, as a king, a new title of greatness and
glory, and, as a man, a source of new enjoyment." The whole Assembly
accompanied the King on his return, amidst the people's cries of
happiness, military music, and salvoes of artillery.
At length I hoped to see a return of that tranquillity which had so long
vanished from the countenances of my august master and mistress. Their
suite left them in the salon; the Queen hastily saluted the ladies, and
returned much affected; the King followed her, and, throwing himself into
an armchair, put his handkerchief to his eyes. "Ah! Madame," cried he,
his voice choked by tears, "why were you present at this sitting? to
witness--" these words were interrupted by sobs. The Queen threw herself
upon her knees before him, and pressed him in her arms. I remained with
them, not from any blamable curiosity, but from a stupefaction which
rendered me incapable of determining what I ought to do. The Queen said
to me, "Oh! go, go!" with an accent which expressed, "Do not remain to see
the dejection and despair of your sovereign!" I withdrew, struck with the
contrast between the shouts of joy without the palace and the profound
grief which oppressed the sovereigns within. Half an hour afterwards the
Queen sent for me. She desired to see M. de Goguelat, to announce to him
his departure on that very night for Vienna. The renewed attacks upon the
dignity of the throne which had been made during the sitting; the spirit
of an Assembly worse than the former; the monarch put upon a level with
the President, without any deference to the throne,--all this proclaimed
but too loudly that the sovereignty itself was aimed at. The Queen no
longer saw any ground for hope from the Provinces. The King wrote to the
Emperor; she told me that she would herself, at midnight, bring the letter
which M. de Goguelat was to bear to the Emperor, to my room.
During all the remainder of the day the Chateau and the Tuileries were
crowded; the illuminations were magnificent. The King and Queen were
requested to take an airing in their carriage in the Champs-Elysees,
escorted by the aides-decamp, and leaders of the Parisian army, the
Constitutional Guard not being at the time organised. Many shouts of
"Vive le Roi!" were heard; but as often as they ceased, one of the mob,
who never quitted the door of the King's carriage for a single instant,
exclaimed with a stentorian voice, "No, don't believe them! Vive la
Nation!" This ill-omened cry struck terror into the Queen.
A few days afterwards M. de Montmorin sent to say he wanted to speak to
me; that he would come to me, if he were not apprehensive his doing so
would attract observation; and that he thought it would appear less
conspicuous if he should see me in the Queen's great closet at a time
which he specified, and when nobody would be there. I went. After having
made some polite observations upon the services I had already performed,
and those I might yet perform, for my master and mistress, he spoke to me
of the King's imminent danger, of the plots which were hatching, and of
the lamentable composition of the Legislative Assembly; and he
particularly dwelt upon the necessity of appearing, by prudent remarks,
determined as much as possible to abide by the act the King had just
recognised. I told him that could not be done without committing
ourselves in the eyes of the royalist party, with which moderation was a
crime; that it was painful to hear ourselves taxed with being
constitutionalists, at the same time that it was our opinion that the only
constitution which was consistent with the King's honour, and the
happiness and tranquillity of his people, was the absolute power of the
sovereign; that this was my creed, and it would pain me to give any room
for suspicion that I was wavering in it.
"Could you ever believe," said he, "that I should desire any other order
of things? Have you any doubt of my attachment to the King's person, and
the maintenance of his rights?"
"I know it, Count," replied I; "but you are not ignorant that you lie
under the imputation of having adopted revolutionary ideas."
"Well, madame, have resolution enough to dissemble and to conceal your
real sentiments; dissimulation was never more necessary. Endeavours are
being made to paralyse the evil intentions of the factious as much as
possible; but we must not be counteracted here by certain dangerous
expressions which are circulated in Paris as coming from the King and
Queen."
I told him that I had been already struck with apprehension of the evil
which might be done by the intemperate observations of persons who had no
power to act; and that I had felt ill consequences from having repeatedly
enjoined silence on those in the Queen's service.
"I know that," said the Count; "the Queen informed me of it, and that
determined me to come and request you to increase and keep alive, as much
as you can, that spirit of discretion which is so necessary."
While the household of the King and Queen were a prey to all these fears,
the festivities in celebration of the acceptance of the constitution
proceeded. Their Majesties went to the Opera; the audience consisted
entirely of persons who sided with the King, and on that day the happiness
of seeing him for a short time surrounded by faithful subjects might be
enjoyed. The acclamations were then sincere.
"La Coquette Corrigee" had been selected for representation at the Theatre
Francais solely because it was the piece in which Mademoiselle Contat
shone most. Yet the notions propagated by the Queen's enemies coinciding
in my mind with the name of the play, I thought the choice very
ill-judged. I was at a loss, however, how to tell her Majesty so; but
sincere attachment gives courage. I explained myself; she was obliged to
me, and desired that another play might be performed. They accordingly
selected "La Gouvernante," almost equally unfortunate in title.
The Queen, Madame the King's daughter, and Madame Elisabeth were all well
received on this occasion. It is true that the opinions and feelings of
the spectators in the boxes could not be otherwise than favourable, and
great pains had been taken, previously to these two performances, to fill
the pit with proper persons. But, on the other hand, the Jacobins took
the same precautions on their side at the Theatre Italien, and the tumult
was excessive there. The play was Gretry's "Les Evenements Imprevus."
Unfortunately, Madame Dugazon thought proper to bow to the Queen as she
sang the words, "Ah, how I love my mistress!" in a duet. Above twenty
voices immediately exclaimed from the pit, "No mistress! no master!
liberty!" A few replied from the boxes and slips, "Vive le Roi! vive la
Reine!" Those in the pit answered, "No master! no Queen!" The quarrel
increased; the pit formed into parties; they began fighting, and the
Jacobins were beaten; tufts of their black hair flew about the
theatre.--[At this time none but the Jacobins had discontinued the use of
hairpowder.--MADAME CAMPAN.]--A military guard arrived. The Faubourg St.
Antoine, hearing of what was going on at the Theatre Italien, flocked
together, and began to talk of marching towards the scene of action. The
Queen preserved the calmest demeanour; the commandants of the guard
surrounded and encouraged her; they conducted themselves promptly and
discreetly. No accident happened. The Queen was highly applauded as she
quitted the theatre; it was the last time she was ever in one!
While couriers were bearing confidential letters from the King to the
Princes, his brothers, and to the foreign sovereigns, the Assembly invited
him to write to the Princes in order to induce them to return to France.
The King desired the Abbe de Montesquiou to write the letter he was to
send; this letter, which was admirably composed in a simple and affecting
style, suited to the character of Louis XVI., and filled with very
powerful arguments in favour of the advantages to be derived from adopting
the principles of the constitution, was confided to me by the King, who
desired me to make him a copy of it.
At this period M. M-----, one of the intendants of Monsieur's household,
obtained a passport from the Assembly to join that Prince on business
relative to his domestic concerns. The Queen selected him to be the
bearer of this letter. She determined to give it to him herself, and to
inform him of its object. I was astonished at her choice of this courier.
The Queen assured me he was exactly the man for her purpose, that she
relied even upon his indiscretion, and that it was merely necessary that
the letter from the King to his brothers should be known to exist. The
Princes were doubtless informed beforehand on the subject by the private
correspondence. Monsieur nevertheless manifested some degree of surprise,
and the messenger returned more grieved than pleased at this mark of
confidence, which nearly cost him his life during the Reign of Terror.
Among the causes of uneasiness to the Queen there was one which was but
too well founded, the thoughtlessness of the French whom she sent to
foreign Courts. She used to say that they had no sooner passed the
frontiers than they disclosed the most secret matters relative to the
King's private sentiments, and that the leaders of the Revolution were
informed of them through their agents, many of whom were Frenchmen who
passed themselves off as emigrants in the cause of their King.
After the acceptance of the constitution, the formation of the King's
household, as well military as civil, formed a subject of attention. The
Duc de Brissac had the command of the Constitutional Guard, which was
composed of officers and men selected from the regiments, and of several
officers drawn from the National Guard of Paris. The King was satisfied
with the feelings and conduct of this band, which, as is well known,
existed but a very short time.
The new constitution abolished what were called honours, and the
prerogatives belonging to them. The Duchesse de Duras resigned her place
of lady of the bedchamber, not choosing to lose her right to the tabouret
at Court. This step hurt the Queen, who saw herself forsaken through the
loss of a petty privilege at a time when her own rights and even life were
so hotly attacked. Many ladies of rank left the Court for the same
reason. However, the King and Queen did not dare to form the civil part
of their household, lest by giving the new names of the posts they should
acknowledge the abolition of the old ones, and also lest they should admit
into the highest positions persons not calculated to fill them well. Some
time was spent in discussing the question, whether the household should be
formed without chevaliers and without ladies of honour. The Queen's
constitutional advisers were of opinion that the Assembly, having decreed
a civil list adequate to uphold the splendour of the throne, would be
dissatisfied at seeing the King adopting only a military household, and
not forming his civil household upon the new constitutional plan. "How is
it, Madame," wrote Barnave to the Queen, "that you will persist in giving
these people even the smallest doubt as to your sentiments? When they
decree you a civil and a military household, you, like young Achilles
among the daughters of Lycomedes, eagerly seize the sword and scorn the
mere ornaments." The Queen persisted in her determination to have no
civil household. "If," said she, "this constitutional household be
formed, not a single person of rank will remain with us, and upon a change
of affairs we should be obliged to discharge the persons received into
their place."
"Perhaps," added she, "perhaps I might find one day that I had saved the
nobility, if I now had resolution enough to afflict them for a time; I
have it not. When any measure which injures them is wrested from us they
sulk with me; nobody comes to my card party; the King goes unattended to
bed. No allowance is made for political necessity; we are punished for
our very misfortunes."
The Queen wrote almost all day, and spent part of the night in reading:
her courage supported her physical strength; her disposition was not at
all soured by misfortunes, and she was never seen in an ill-humour for a
moment. She was, however, held up to the people as a woman absolutely
furious and mad whenever the rights of the Crown were in any way attacked.
I was with her one day at one of her windows. We saw a man plainly
dressed, like an ecclesiastic, surrounded by an immense crowd. The Queen
imagined it was some abbe whom they were about to throw into the basin of
the Tuileries; she hastily opened her window and sent a valet de chambre
to know what was going forward in the garden. It was Abbe Gregoire, whom
the men and women of the tribunes were bringing back in triumph, on
account of a motion he had just made in the National Assembly against the
royal authority. On the following day the democratic journalists
described the Queen as witnessing this triumph, and showing, by expressive
gestures at her window, how highly she was exasperated by the honours
conferred upon the patriot.
The correspondence between the Queen and the foreign powers was carried on
in cipher. That to which she gave the preference can never be detected;
but the greatest patience is requisite for its use. Each correspondent
must have a copy of the same edition of some work. She selected "Paul and
Virginia." The page and line in which the letters required, and
occasionally a monosyllable, are to be found are pointed out in ciphers
agreed upon. I assisted her in finding the letters, and frequently I made
an exact copy for her of all that she had ciphered, without knowing a
single word of its meaning.
There were always several secret committees in Paris occupied in
collecting information for the King respecting the measures of the
factions, and in influencing some of the committees of the Assembly. M.
Bertrand de Molleville was in close correspondence with the Queen. The
King employed M. Talon and others; much money was expended through the
latter channel for the secret measures. The Queen had no confidence in
them. M. de Laporte, minister of the civil list and of the household,
also attempted to give a bias to public opinion by means of hireling
publications; but these papers influenced none but the royalist party,
which did not need influencing. M. de Laporte had a private police which
gave him some useful information.
I determined to sacrifice myself to my duty, but by no means to any
intrigue, and I thought that, circumstanced as I was, I ought to confine
myself to obeying the Queen's orders. I frequently sent off couriers to
foreign countries, and they were never discovered, so many precautions did
I take. I am indebted for the preservation of my own existence to the
care I took never to admit any deputy to my abode, and to refuse all
interviews which even people of the highest importance often requested of
me; but this line of conduct exposed me to every species of ill-will, and
on the same day I saw myself denounced by Prud'homme, in his 'Gazette
Revolutionnaire', as capable of making an aristocrat of the mother of the
Gracchi, if a person so dangerous as myself could have got into her
household; and by Gauthier's Gazette Royaliste, as a monarchist, a
constitutionalist, more dangerous to the Queen's interests than a Jacobin.
At this period an event with which I had nothing to do placed me in a
still more critical situation. My brother, M. Genet, began his diplomatic
career successfully. At eighteen he was attached to the embassy to
Vienna; at twenty he was appointed chief secretary of Legation in England,
on occasion of the peace of 1783. A memorial which he presented to M. de
Vergennes upon the dangers of the treaty of commerce then entered into
with England gave offence to M. de Calonne, a patron of that treaty, and
particularly to M. Gerard de Rayneval, chief clerk for foreign affairs.
So long as M. de Vergennes lived, having upon my father's death declared
himself the protector of my brother, he supported him against the enemies
his views had created. But on his death M. de Montmorin, being much in
need of the long experience in business which he found in M. de Rayneval,
was guided solely by the latter. The office of which my brother was the
head was suppressed. He then went to St. Petersburg, strongly recommended
to the Comte de Segur, minister from France to that Court, who appointed
him secretary of Legation. Some time afterwards the Comte de Segur left
him at St. Petersburg, charged with the affairs of France. After his
return from Russia, M. Genet was appointed ambassador to the United States
by the party called Girondists, the deputies who headed it being from the
department of the Gironde. He was recalled by the Robespierre party,
which overthrew the former faction, on the 31st of May, 1793, and
condemned to appear before the Convention. Vice-President Clinton, at
that time Governor of New York, offered him an asylum in his house and the
hand of his daughter, and M. Genet established himself prosperously in
America.
When my brother quitted Versailles he was much hurt at being deprived of a
considerable income for having penned a memorial which his zeal alone had
dictated, and the importance of which was afterwards but too well
understood. I perceived from his correspondence that he inclined to some
of the new notions. He told me it was right he should no longer conceal
from me that he sided with the constitutional party; that the King had in
fact commanded it, having himself accepted the constitution; that he would
proceed firmly in that course, because in this case disingenuousness would
be fatal, and that he took that side of the question because he had had it
proved to him that the foreign powers would not serve the King's cause
without advancing pretensions prompted by long-standing interests, which
always would influence their councils; that he saw no salvation for the
King and Queen but from within France, and that he would serve the
constitutional King as he served him before the Revolution. And lastly,
he requested me to impart to the Queen the real sentiments of one of his
Majesty's agents at a foreign Court. I immediately went to the Queen and
gave her my brother's letter; she read it attentively, and said, "This is
the letter of a young man led astray by discontent and ambition; I know
you do not think as he does; do not fear that you will lose the confidence
of the King and myself." I offered to discontinue all correspondence with
my brother; she opposed that, saying it would be dangerous. I then
entreated she would permit me in future to show her my own and my
brother's letters, to which she consented. I wrote warmly to my brother
against the course he had adopted. I sent my letters by sure channels; he
answered me by the post, and no longer touched upon anything but family
affairs. Once only he informed me that if I should write to him
respecting the affairs of the day he would give me no answer. "Serve your
august mistress with the unbounded devotion which is due from you," said
he, "and let us each do our duty. I will only observe to you that at
Paris the fogs of the Seine often prevent people from seeing that immense
capital, even from the Pavilion of Flora, and I see it more clearly from
St. Petersburg." The Queen said, as she read this letter, "Perhaps he
speaks but too truly; who can decide upon so disastrous a position as ours
has become?" The day on which I gave the Queen my brother's first letter
to read she had several audiences to give to ladies and other persons
belonging to the Court, who came on purpose to inform her that my brother
was an avowed constitutionalist and revolutionist. The Queen replied, "I
know it; Madame Campan has told me so." Persons jealous of my situation
having subjected me to mortifications, and these unpleasant circumstances
recurring daily, I requested the Queen's permission to withdraw from
Court. She exclaimed against the very idea, represented it to me as
extremely dangerous for my own reputation, and had the kindness to add
that, for my sake as well as for her own, she never would consent to it.
After this conversation I retired to my apartment. A few minutes later a
footman brought me this note from the Queen: "I have never ceased to give
you and yours proofs of my attachment; I wish to tell you in writing that
I have full faith in your honour and fidelity, as well as in your other
good qualities; and that I ever rely on the zeal and address you exert to
serve me."
[I had just received this letter from the Queen when M. de la Chapelle,
commissary-general of the King's household, and head of the offices of M.
de Laporte, minister of the civil list, came to see me. The palace having
been already sacked by the brigands on the 20th of June, 1792, he proposed
that I should entrust the paper to him, that he might place it in a safer
situation than the apartments of the Queen. When he returned into his
offices he placed the letter she had condescended to write to me behind a
large picture in his closet; but on the loth of August M. de la Chapelle
was thrown into the prisons of the Abbaye, and the committee of public
safety established themselves in his offices, whence they issued all their
decrees of death. There it was that a villainous servant belonging to M.
de Laporte went to declare that in the minister's apartments, under a
board in the floor, a number of papers would be found. They were brought
forth, and M. de Laporte was sent to the scaffold, where he suffered for
having betrayed the State by serving his master and sovereign. M. de la
Chapelle was saved, as if by a miracle, from the massacres of the 2d of
September. The committee of public safety having removed to the King's
apartments at the Tuileries, M. de la Chapelle had permission to return to
his closet to take away some property belonging to him. Turning round the
picture, behind which he had hidden the Queen's letter, he found it in the
place into which he had slipped it, and, delighted to see that I was safe
from the ill consequences the discovery of this paper might have brought
upon me, he burnt it instantly. In times of danger a mere nothing may
save life or destroy it.--MADAME CAMPAN]
At the moment that I was going to express my gratitude to the Queen I
heard a tapping at the door of my room, which opened upon the Queen's
inner corridor. I opened it; it was the King. I was confused; he
perceived it, and said to me, kindly: "I alarm you, Madame Campan; I come,
however, to comfort you; the Queen has told me how much she is hurt at the
injustice of several persons towards you. But how is it that you complain
of injustice and calumny when you see that we are victims of them? In
some of your companions it is jealousy; in the people belonging to the
Court it is anxiety. Our situation is so disastrous, and we have met with
so much ingratitude and treachery, that the apprehensions of those who
love us are excusable! I could quiet them by telling them all the secret
services you perform for us daily; but I will not do it. Out of good-will
to you they would repeat all I should say, and you would be lost with the
Assembly. It is much better, both for you and for us, that you should be
thought a constitutionalist. It has been mentioned to me a hundred times
already; I have never contradicted it; but I come to give you my word that
if we are fortunate enough to see an end of all this, I will, at the
Queen's residence, and in the presence of my brothers, relate the
important services you have rendered us, and I will recompense you and
your son for them." I threw myself at the King's feet and kissed his
hand. He raised me up, saying, "Come, come, do not grieve; the Queen, who
loves you, confides in you as I do."
Down to the day of the acceptance it was impossible to introduce Barnave
into the interior of the palace; but when the Queen was free from the
inner guard she said she would see him. The very great precautions which
it was necessary for the deputy to take in order to conceal his connection
with the King and Queen compelled them to spend two hours waiting for him
in one of the corridors of the Tuileries, and all in vain. The first day
that he was to be admitted, a man whom Barnave knew to be dangerous having
met him in the courtyard of the palace, he determined to cross it without
stopping, and walked in the gardens in order to lull suspicion. I was
desired to wait for Barnave at a little door belonging to the entresols of
the palace, with my hand upon the open lock. I was in that position for
an hour. The King came to me frequently, and always to speak to me of the
uneasiness which a servant belonging to the Chateau, who was a patriot,
gave him. He came again to ask me whether I had heard the door called de
Decret opened. I assured him nobody had been in the corridor, and he
became easy. He was dreadfully apprehensive that his connection with
Barnave would be discovered. "It would," said the King, "be a ground for
grave accusations, and the unfortunate man would be lost." I then
ventured to remind his Majesty that as Barnave was not the only one in the
secret of the business which brought him in contact with their Majesties,
one of his colleagues might be induced to speak of the association with
which they were honoured, and that in letting them know by my presence
that I also was informed of it, a risk was incurred of removing from those
gentlemen part of the responsibility of the secret. Upon this observation
the King quitted me hastily and returned a moment afterwards with the
Queen. "Give me your place," said she; "I will wait for him in my turn.
You have convinced the King. We must not increase in their eyes the
number of persons informed of their communications with us."
The police of M. de Laporte, intendant of the civil list, apprised him, as
early as the latter end of 1791, that a man belonging to the King's
offices who had set up as a pastrycook at the Palais Royal was about to
resume the duties of his situation, which had devolved upon him again on
the death of one who held it for life; that he was so furious a Jacobin
that he had dared to say it would be a good thing for France if the King's
days were shortened. His duty was confined to making the pastry; he was
closely watched by the head officers of the kitchen, who were devoted to
his Majesty; but it is so easy to introduce a subtle poison into made
dishes that it was determined the King and Queen should eat only plain
roast meat in future; that their bread should be brought to them by M.
Thierry de Ville-d'Avray, intendant of the smaller apartments, and that he
should likewise take upon himself to supply the wine. The King was fond
of pastry; I was directed to order some, as if for myself, sometimes of
one pastry-cook, and sometimes of another. The pounded sugar, too, was
kept in my room. The King, the Queen, and Madame Elisabeth ate together,
and nobody remained to wait on them. Each had a dumb waiter and a little
bell to call the servants when they were wanted. M. Thierry used himself
to bring me their Majesties' bread and wine, and I locked them up in a
private cupboard in the King's closet on the ground floor. As soon as the
King sat down to table I took in the pastry and bread. All was hidden
under the table lest it might be necessary to have the servants in. The
King thought it dangerous as well as distressing to show any apprehension
of attempts against his person, or any mistrust of his officers of the
kitchen. As he never drank a whole bottle of wine at his meals (the
Princesses drank nothing but water), he filled up that out of which he had
drunk about half from the bottle served up by the officers of his butlery.
I took it away after dinner. Although he never ate any other pastry than
that which I brought, he took care in the same manner that it should seem
that he had eaten of that served at table. The lady who succeeded me found
this duty all regulated, and she executed it in the same manner; the
public never was in possession of these particulars, nor of the
apprehensions which gave rise to them. At the end of three or four months
the police of M. de Laporte gave notice that nothing more was to be
dreaded from that sort of plot against the King's life; that the plan was
entirely changed; and that all the blows now to be struck would be
directed as much against the throne as against the person of the
sovereign.
There are others besides myself who know that at this time one of the
things about which the Queen most desired to be satisfied was the opinion
of the famous Pitt. She would sometimes say to me, "I never pronounce the
name of Pitt without feeling a chill like that of death." (I repeat here
her very expressions.) "That man is the mortal enemy of France; and he
takes a dreadful revenge for the impolitic support given by the Cabinet of
Versailles to the American insurgents. He wishes by our destruction to
guarantee the maritime power of his country forever against the efforts
made by the King to improve his marine power and their happy results
during the last war. He knows that it is not only the King's policy but
his private inclination to be solicitous about his fleets, and that the
most active step he has taken during his whole reign was to visit the port
of Cherbourg. Pitt had served the cause of the French Revolution from the
first disturbances; he will perhaps serve it until its annihilation. I
will endeavour to learn to what point he intends to lead us, and I am
sending M.----- to London for that purpose. He has been intimately
connected with Pitt, and they have often had political conversations
respecting the French Government. I will get him to make him speak out,
at least so far as such a man can speak out." Some time afterwards the
Queen told me that her secret envoy was returned from London, and that all
he had been able to wring from Pitt, whom he found alarmingly reserved,
was that he would not suffer the French monarchy to perish; that to suffer
the revolutionary spirit to erect an organised republic in France would be
a great error, affecting the tranquillity of Europe. "Whenever," said
she, "Pitt expressed himself upon the necessity of supporting monarchy in
France, he maintained the most profound silence upon what concerns the
monarch. The result of these conversations is anything but encouraging;
but, even as to that monarchy which he wishes to save, will he have means
and strength to save it if he suffers us to fall?"
The death of the Emperor Leopold took place on the 1st of March, 1792.
When the news of this event reached the Tuileries, the Queen was gone out.
Upon her return I put the letter containing it into her hands. She
exclaimed that the Emperor had been poisoned; that she had remarked and
preserved a newspaper, in which, in an article upon the sitting of the
Jacobins, at the time when the Emperor Leopold declared for the coalition,
it was said, speaking of him, that a pie-crust would settle that matter.
At this period Barnave obtained the Queen's consent that he should read
all the letters she should write. He was fearful of private
correspondences that might hamper the plan marked out for her; he
mistrusted her Majesty's sincerity on this point; and the diversity of
counsels, and the necessity of yielding, on the one hand, to some of the
views of the constitutionalists, and on the other, to those of the French
Princes, and even of foreign Courts, were unfortunately the circumstances
which most rapidly impelled the Court towards its ruin.
However, the emigrants showed great apprehensions of the consequences
which might follow in the interior from a connection with the
constitutionalists, whom they described as a party existing only in idea,
and totally without means of repairing their errors. The Jacobins were
preferred to them, because, said they, there would be no treaty to be made
with any one at the moment of extricating the King and his family from the
abyss in which they were plunged.