I will relate one of the plans of emigration which the Queen communicated

to me, the success of which seemed infallible. The royal family were to

meet in a wood four leagues from St. Cloud; some persons who could be

fully relied on were to accompany the King, who was always followed by his

equerries and pages; the Queen was to join him with her daughter and

Madame Elisabeth. These Princesses, as well as the Queen, had equerries

and pages, of whose fidelity no doubt could be entertained. The Dauphin

likewise was to be at the place of rendezvous with Madame de Tourzel; a

large berlin and a chaise for the attendants were sufficient for the whole

family; the aides-de-camp were to have been gained over or mastered. The

King was to leave a letter for the President of the National Assembly on

his bureau at St. Cloud. The people in the service of the King and Queen

would have waited until nine in the evening without anxiety, because the

family sometimes did not return until that hour. The letter could not be

forwarded to Paris until ten o’clock at the earliest. The Assembly would

not then be sitting; the President must have been sought for at his own

house or elsewhere; it would have been midnight before the Assembly could

have been summoned and couriers sent off to have the royal family stopped;

but the latter would have been six or seven hours in advance, as they

would have started at six leagues’ distance from Paris; and at this period

travelling was not yet impeded in France.

The Queen approved of this plan; but I did not venture to interrogate her,

and I even thought if it were put in execution she would leave me in

ignorance of it. One evening in the month of June the people of the

Chateau, finding the King did not return by nine o’clock, were walking

about the courtyards in a state of great anxiety. I thought the family,

was gone, and I could scarcely breathe amidst the confusion of my good

wishes, when I heard the sound of the carriages. I confessed to the Queen

that I thought she had set off; she told me she must wait until Mesdames

the King’s aunts had quitted France, and afterwards see whether the plan

agreed with those formed abroad.

CHAPTER IV.

There was a meeting at Paris for the first federation on the 14th of July,

1790, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille. What an astonishing

assemblage of four hundred thousand men, of whom there were not perhaps

two hundred who did not believe that the King found happiness and glory in

the order of things then being established. The love which was borne him

by all, with the exception of those who meditated his ruin, still reigned

in the hearts of the French in the departments; but if I may judge from

those whom I had an opportunity of seeing, it was totally impossible to

enlighten them; they were as much attached to the King as to the

constitution, and to the constitution as to the King; and it was

impossible to separate the one from the other in their hearts and minds.

The Court returned to St. Cloud after the federation. A wretch, named

Rotondo, made his way into the palace with the intention of assassinating

the Queen. It is known that he penetrated to the inner gardens: the rain

prevented her Majesty from going out that day. M. de La Fayette, who was

aware of this plot, gave all the sentinels the strictest orders, and a

description of the monster was distributed throughout the palace by order

of the General. I do not know how he was saved from punishment. The

police belonging to the King discovered that there was likewise a scheme

on foot for poisoning the Queen. She spoke to me, as well as to her head

physician, M. Vicq-d’Azyr, about it, without the slightest emotion, but

both he and I consulted what precautions it would be proper to take. He

relied much upon the Queen’s temperance; yet he recommended me always to

have a bottle of oil of sweet almonds within reach, and to renew it

occasionally, that oil and milk being, as is known, the most certain

antidotes to the divellication of corrosive poisons.

The Queen had a habit which rendered M. Vicq-d’Azyr particularly uneasy:

there was always some pounded sugar upon the table in her Majesty’s

bedchamber; and she frequently, without calling anybody, put spoonfuls of

it into a glass of water when she wished to drink. It was agreed that I

should get a considerable quantity of sugar powdered; that I should always

have some papers of it in my bag, and that three or four times a day, when

alone in the Queen’s room, I should substitute it for that in her

sugar-basin. We knew that the Queen would have prevented all such

precautions, but we were not aware of her reason. One day she caught me

alone making this exchange, and told me, she supposed it was agreed on

between myself and M. Vicq-d’Azyr, but that I gave myself very unnecessary

trouble. “Remember,” added she, “that not a grain of poison will be put

in use against me. The Brinvilliers do not belong to this century: this

age possesses calumny, which is a much more convenient instrument of

death; and it is by that I shall perish.”

Even while melancholy presentiments afflicted this unfortunate Princess,

manifestations of attachment to her person, and to the King’s cause, would

frequently raise agreeable illusions in her mind, or present to her the

affecting spectacle of tears shed for her sorrows. I was one day, during

this same visit to St. Cloud, witness of a very touching scene, which we

took great care to keep secret. It was four in the afternoon; the guard

was not set; there was scarcely anybody at St. Cloud that day, and I was

reading to the Queen, who was at work in a room the balcony of which hung

over the courtyard. The windows were closed, yet we heard a sort of

inarticulate murmur from a great number of voices. The Queen desired me

to go and see what it was; I raised the muslin curtain, and perceived more

than fifty persons beneath the balcony: this group consisted of women,

young and old, perfectly well dressed in the country costume, old

chevaliers of St. Louis, young knights of Malta, and a few ecclesiastics.

I told the Queen it was probably an assemblage of persons residing in the

neighbourhood who wished to see her. She rose, opened the window, and

appeared in the balcony; immediately all these worthy people said to her,

in an undertone: “Courage, Madame; good Frenchmen suffer for you, and with

you; they pray for you. Heaven will hear their prayers; we love you, we

respect you, we will continue to venerate our virtuous King.” The Queen

burst into tears, and held her handkerchief to her eyes. “Poor Queen! she

weeps!” said the women and young girls; but the dread of exposing her

Majesty, and even the persons who showed so much affection for her, to

observation, prompted me to take her hand, and prevail upon her to retire

into her room; and, raising my eyes, I gave the excellent people to

understand that my conduct was dictated by prudence. They comprehended

me, for I heard, “That lady is right;” and afterwards, “Farewell, Madame!”

from several of them; and all this in accents of feeling so true and so

mournful, that I am affected at the recollection of them even after a

lapse of twenty years.

A few days afterwards the insurrection of Nancy took place.

[The insurrection of the troops at Nancy broke out in August 1790, and was

put down by Marechal de Bouille on the last day of that month. See

“Bouille,” p. 195.]

Only the ostensible cause is known; there was another, of which I might

have been in full possession, if the great confusion I was in upon the

subject had not deprived me of the power of paying attention to it. I

will endeavour to make myself understood. In the early part of September

the Queen, as she was going to bed, desired me to let all her people go,

and to remain with her myself; when we were alone she said to me, “The

King will come here at midnight. You know that he has always shown you

marks of distinction; he now proves his confidence in you by selecting you

to write down the whole affair of Nancy from his dictation. He must have

several copies of it.” At midnight the King came to the Queen’s

apartments, and said to me, smiling, “You did not expect to become my

secretary, and that, too, during the night.” I followed the King into the

council chamber. I found there sheets of paper, an inkstand, and pens all

ready prepared. He sat down by my side and dictated to me the report of

the Marquis de Bouille, which he himself copied at the same time. My hand

trembled; I wrote with difficulty; my reflections scarcely left me

sufficient power of attention to listen to the King. The large table, the

velvet cloth, seats which ought to have been filled by none but the King’s

chief councillors; what that chamber had been, and what it was at that

moment, when the King was employing a woman in an office which had so

little affinity with her ordinary functions; the misfortunes which had

brought him to the necessity of doing so,--all these ideas made such an

impression upon me that when I had returned to the Queen’s apartments I

could not sleep for the remainder of the night, nor could I remember what

I had written.

The more I saw that I had the happiness to be of some use to my employers,

the more scrupulously careful was I to live entirely with my family; and I

never indulged in any conversation which could betray the intimacy to

which I was admitted; but nothing at Court remains long concealed, and I

soon saw I had many enemies. The means of injuring others in the minds of

sovereigns are but too easily obtained, and they had become still more so,

since the mere suspicion of communication with partisans of the Revolution

was sufficient to forfeit the esteem and confidence of the King and Queen;

happily, my conduct protected me, with them, against calumny. I had left

St. Cloud two days, when I received at Paris a note from the Queen,

containing these words:

“Come to St. Cloud immediately; I have something concerning you to

communicate.” I set off without loss of time. Her Majesty told me she

had a sacrifice to request of me; I answered that it was made. She said

it went so far as the renunciation of a friend’s society; that such a

renunciation was always painful, but that it must be particularly so to

me; that, for her own part, it might have been very useful that a deputy,

a man of talent, should be constantly received at my house; but at this

moment she thought only of my welfare. The Queen then informed me that

the ladies of the bedchamber had, the preceding evening, assured her that

M. de Beaumetz, deputy from the nobility of Artois, who had taken his seat

on the left of the Assembly, spent his whole time at my house. Perceiving

on what false grounds the attempt to injure, me was based, I replied

respectfully, but at the same time smiling, that it was impossible for me

to make the sacrifice exacted by her Majesty; that M. de Beaumetz, a man

of great judgment, had not determined to cross over to the left of the

Assembly with the intention of afterwards making himself unpopular by

spending his time with the Queen’s first woman; and that, ever since the

1st of October, 1789, I had seen him nowhere but at the play, or in the

public walks, and even then without his ever coming to speak to me; that

this line of conduct had appeared to me perfectly consistent: for whether

he was desirous to please the popular party, or to be sought after by the

Court, he could not act in any other way towards me. The Queen closed

this explanation by saying, “Oh! it is clear, as clear as the day! this

opportunity for trying to do you an injury is very ill chosen; but be

cautious in your slightest actions; you perceive that the confidence

placed in you by the King and myself raises you up powerful enemies.”

The private communications which were still kept up between the Court and

Mirabeau at length procured him an interview with the Queen, in the

gardens of St. Cloud. He left Paris on horseback, on pretence of going

into the country, to M. de Clavieres, one of his friends; but he stopped

at one of the gates of the gardens of St. Cloud, and was led to a spot

situated in the highest part of the private garden, where the Queen was

waiting for him. She told me she accosted him by saying, “With a common

enemy, with a man who had sworn to destroy monarchy without appreciating

its utility among a great people, I should at this moment be guilty of a

most ill-advised step; but in speaking to a Mirabeau,” etc. The poor

Queen was delighted at having discovered this method of exalting him above

all others of his principles; and in imparting the particulars of this

interview to me she said, “Do you know that those words, ‘a Mirabeau,’

appeared to flatter him exceedingly.” On leaving the Queen he said to her

with warmth, “Madame, the monarchy is saved!” It must have been soon

afterwards that Mirabeau received considerable sums of money. He showed

it too plainly by the increase of his expenditure. Already did some of his

remarks upon the necessity of arresting the progress of the democrats

circulate in society. Being once invited to meet a person at dinner who

was very much attached to the Queen, he learned that that person withdrew

on hearing that he was one of the guests; the party who invited him told

him this with some degree of satisfaction; but all were very much

astonished when they heard Mirabeau eulogise the absent guest, and declare

that in his place he would have done the same; but, he added, they had

only to invite that person again in a few months, and he would then dine

with the restorer of the monarchy. Mirabeau forgot that it was more easy

to do harm than good, and thought himself the political Atlas of the whole

world.

Outrages and mockery were incessantly mingled with the audacious

proceedings of the revolutionists. It was customary to give serenades

under the King’s windows on New Year’s Day. The band of the National

Guard repaired thither on that festival in 1791; in allusion to the

liquidation of the debts of the State, decreed by the Assembly, they

played solely, and repeatedly, that air from the comic opera of the

“Debts,” the burden of which is, “But our creditors are paid, and that

makes us easy.”

On the same day some “conquerors of the Bastille,” grenadiers of the

Parisian guard, preceded by military music, came to present to the young

Dauphin, as a New Year’s gift, a box of dominoes, made of some of the

stone and marble of which that state prison was built. The Queen gave me

this inauspicious curiosity, desiring me to preserve it, as it would be a

curious illustration of the history of the Revolution. Upon the lid were

engraved some bad verses, the purport of which was as follows: “Stones

from those walls, which enclosed the innocent victims of arbitrary power,

have been converted into a toy, to be presented to you, Monseigneur, as a

mark of the people’s love; and to teach you their power.”

The Queen said that M. de La Fayette’s thirst for popularity induced him

to lend himself, without discrimination, to all popular follies. Her

distrust of the General increased daily, and grew so powerful that when,

towards the end of the Revolution, he seemed willing to support the

tottering throne, she could never bring herself to incur so great an

obligation to him.

M. de J-----, a colonel attached to the staff of the army, was fortunate

enough to render several services to the Queen, and acquitted himself with

discretion and dignity of various important missions.

[During the Queen’s detention in the Temple he introduced himself Into

that prison in the dress of a lamplighter, and there discharged his duty

unrecognised.--MADAME CAMPAN.]

Their Majesties had the highest confidence in him, although it frequently

happened that his prudence, when inconsiderate projects were under

discussion, brought upon him the charge of adopting the principles of the

constitutionals. Being sent to Turin, he had some difficulty in

dissuading the Princes from a scheme they had formed at that period of

reentering France, with a very weak army, by way of Lyons; and when, in a

council which lasted till three o’clock in the morning, he showed his

instructions, and demonstrated that the measure would endanger the King,

the Comte d’Artois alone declared against the plan, which emanated from

the Prince de Conde.

Among the persons employed in subordinate situations, whom the critical

circumstances of the times involved in affairs of importance, was M. de

Goguelat, a geographical engineer at Versailles, and an excellent

draughtsman. He made plans of St. Cloud and Trianon for the Queen; she

was very much pleased with them, and had the engineer admitted into the

staff of the army. At the commencement of the Revolution he was sent to

Count Esterhazy, at Valenciennes, in the capacity of aide-de-camp. The

latter rank was given him solely to get him away from Versailles, where

his rashness endangered the Queen during the earlier months of the

Assembly of the States General. Making a parade of his devotion to the

King’s interests, he went repeatedly to the tribunes of the Assembly, and

there openly railed at all the motions of the deputies, and then returned

to the Queen’s antechamber, where he repeated all that he had just heard,

or had had the imprudence to say. Unfortunately, at the same time that

the Queen sent away M. de Goguelat, she still believed that, in a

dangerous predicament, requiring great self-devotion, the man might be

employed advantageously. In 1791 he was commissioned to act in concert

with the Marquis de Bouille in furtherance of the King’s intended escape.

[See the “Memoirs” of M. de Bouille, those of the Duc de Choiseul, and the

account of the journey to Varennes, by M. de Fontanges, in “Weber’s

Memoirs.”--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

Projectors in great numbers endeavoured to introduce themselves not only

to the Queen, but to Madame Elisabeth, who had communications with many

individuals who took upon themselves to make plans for the conduct of the

Court. The Baron de Gilliers and M. de Vanoise were of this description;

they went to the Baronne de Mackau’s, where the Princess spent almost all

her evenings. The Queen did not like these meetings, where Madame

Elisabeth might adopt views in opposition to the King’s intentions or her

own.

The Queen gave frequent audiences to M. de La Fayette. One day, when he

was in her inner closet, his aides-de-camp, who waited for him, were

walking up and down the great room where the persons in attendance

remained. Some imprudent young women were thoughtless enough to say, with

the intention of being overheard by those officers, that it was very

alarming to see the Queen alone with a rebel and a brigand. I was annoyed

at their indiscretion, and imposed silence on them. One of them persisted

in the appellation “brigand.” I told her that M. de La Fayette well

deserved the name of rebel, but that the title of leader of a party was

given by history to every man commanding forty thousand men, a capital,

and forty leagues of country; that kings had frequently treated with such

leaders, and if it was convenient to the Queen to do the same, it remained

for us only to be silent and respect her actions. On the morrow the

Queen, with a serious air; but with the greatest kindness, asked what I

had said respecting M. de La Fayette on the preceding day; adding that she

had been assured I had enjoined her women silence, because they did not

like him, and that I had taken his part. I repeated what had passed to

the Queen, word for word. She condescended to tell me that I had done

perfectly right.

Whenever any false reports respecting me were conveyed to her she was kind

enough to inform me of them; and they had no effect on the confidence with

which she continued to honour me, and which I am happy to think I have

justified even at the risk of my life.

Mesdames, the King’s aunts, set out from Bellevue in the beginning of the

year 1791. Alexandre Berthier, afterwards Prince de Neufchatel, then a

colonel on the staff of the army, and commandant of the National Guard of

Versailles, facilitated the departure of Mesdames. The Jacobins of that

town procured his dismissal, and he ran the greatest risk, on account of

having rendered this service to these Princesses.

I went to take leave of Madame Victoire. I little thought that I was then

seeing her for the last time. She received me alone in her closet, and

assured me that she hoped, as well as wished, soon to return to France;

that the French would be much to be pitied if the excesses of the

Revolution should arrive at such a pitch as to force her to prolong her

absence.

[General Berthier justified the monarch’s confidence by a firm and prudent

line of conduct which entitled him to the highest military honours, and to

the esteem of the great warrior whose fortune, dangers, and glory he

afterwards shared. This officer, full of honour, and gifted with the

highest courage, was shut into the courtyard of Bellevue by his own troop,

and ran great risk of being murdered. It was not until the 14th of March

that he succeeded in executing his instructions (“Memoirs of Mesdames,” by

Montigny, vol. i.)]

I knew from the Queen that the departure of Mesdames was deemed

necessary, in order to leave the King free to act when he should be

compelled to go away with his family. It being impossible that the

constitution of the clergy should be otherwise than in direct opposition

to the religious principles of Mesdames, they thought their journey to

Rome would be attributed to piety alone. It was, however, difficult to

deceive an Assembly which weighed the slightest actions of the royal

family, and from that moment they were more than ever alive to what was

passing at the Tuileries.

Mesdames were desirous of taking Madame Elisabeth to Rome. The free

exercise of religion, the happiness of taking refuge with the head of the

Church, and the prospect of living in safety with her aunts, whom she

tenderly loved, were sacrificed by that virtuous Princess to her

attachment to the King.

The oath required of priests by the civil constitution of the clergy

introduced into France a division which added to the dangers by which the

King was already surrounded.

[The priests were required to swear to the civil constitution of the

clergy of 1790, by which all the former bishoprics and parishes were

remodelled, and the priests and bishops elected by the people. Most

refused, and under the name of ‘pretres insermentes’ (as opposed to the

few who took the oath, ‘pretres assermentes’) were bitterly persecuted. A

simple promise to obey the constitution of the State was substituted by

Napoleon as soon as he came to power.]

Mirabeau spent a whole night with the cure of St. Eustache, confessor of

the King and Queen, to persuade him to take the oath required by that

constitution. Their Majesties chose another confessor, who remained

unknown.

A few months afterwards (2d April, 1791), the too celebrated Mirabeau, the

mercenary democrat and venal royalist, terminated his career. The Queen

regretted him, and was astonished at her own regret; but she had hoped

that he who had possessed adroitness and weight enough to throw everything

into confusion would have been able by the same means to repair the

mischief he had caused. Much has been said respecting the cause of

Mirabeau’s death. M. Cabanis, his friend and physician, denied that he

was poisoned. M. Vicq-d’Azyr assured the Queen that the ‘proces-verbal’

drawn up on the state of the intestines would apply just as well to a case

of death produced by violent remedies as to one produced by poison. He

said, also, that the report had been faithful; but that it was prudent to

conclude it by a declaration of natural death, since, in the critical

state in which France then was, if a suspicion of foul play were admitted,

a person innocent of any such crime might be sacrificed to public

vengeance.

CHAPTER V.

In the beginning of the spring of 1791, the King, tired of remaining at

the Tuileries, wished to return to St. Cloud. His whole household had

already gone, and his dinner was prepared there. He got into his carriage

at one; the guard mutinied, shut the gates, and declared they would not

let him pass. This event certainly proceeded from some suspicion of a

plan to escape. Two persons who drew near the King’s carriage were very

ill treated. My father-in-law was violently laid hold of by the guards,

who took his sword from him. The King and his family were obliged to

alight and return to their apartments.

They did not much regret this outrage in their hearts; they saw in it a

justification, even in the eyes of the people, of their intention to leave

Paris.

So early as the month of March in the same year, the Queen began to busy

herself in preparing for her departure. I spent that month with her, and

executed a great number of secret orders which she gave me respecting the

intended event. It was with uneasiness that I saw her occupied with cares

which seemed to me useless, and even dangerous, and I remarked to her that

the Queen of France would find linen and gowns everywhere. My observations

were made in vain; she determined to have a complete wardrobe with her at

Brussels, as well for her children as herself. I went out alone and almost

disguised to purchase the articles necessary and have them made up.

I ordered six chemises at the shop of one seamstress, six at that of

another, gowns, combing cloths, etc. My sister had a complete set of

clothes made for Madame, by the measure of her eldest daughter, and I

ordered clothes for the Dauphin from those of my son. I filled a trunk

with these things, and addressed them, by the Queen’s orders, to one of

her women, my aunt, Madame Cardon,--a widow living at Arras, by virtue of

an unlimited leave of absence,--in order that she might be ready to start

for Brussels, or any other place, as soon as she should be directed to do

so. This lady had landed property in Austrian Flanders, and could at any

time quit Arras unobserved.

The Queen was to take only her first woman in attendance with her from

Paris. She apprised me that if I should not be on duty at the moment of

departure, she would make arrangements for my joining her. She determined

also to take her travelling dressing-case. She consulted me on her idea

of sending it off, under pretence of making a present of it to the

Archduchess Christina, Gouvernante of the Netherlands. I ventured to

oppose this plan strongly, and observed that, amidst so many people who

watched her slightest actions, there would be found a sufficient number

sharp-sighted enough to discover that it was only a pretext for sending

away the property in question before her own departure; she persisted in

her intention, and all I could arrange was that the dressing-case should

not be removed from her apartment, and that M. de charge d’afaires from

the Court of Vienna during the absence of the Comte de Mercy, should come

and ask her, at her toilet, before all her people, to order one exactly

like her own for Madame the Gouvernante of the Netherlands. The Queen,

therefore, commanded me before the charge d’affaires to order the article

in question. This occasioned only an expense of five hundred louis, and

appeared calculated to lull suspicion completely.

About the middle of May, 1791, a month after the Queen had ordered me to

bespeak the dressing-case, she asked me whether it would soon be finished.

I sent for the ivory-turner who had it in hand. He could not complete it

for six weeks. I informed the Queen of this, and she told me she should

not be able to wait for it, as she was to set out in the course of June.

She added that, as she had ordered her sister’s dressing-case in the

presence of all her attendants, she had taken a sufficient precaution,

especially by saying that her sister was out of patience at not receiving

it, and that therefore her own must be emptied and cleaned, and taken to

the charge d’affaires, who would send it off. I executed this order

without any, appearance of mystery. I desired the wardrobe woman to take

out of the dressing-case all that it contained, because that intended for

the Archduchess could not be finished for some time; and to take great

care to leave no remains of the perfumes which might not suit that

Princess.

The woman in question executed her commission punctually; but, on the

evening of that very day, the 15th of May, 1791, she informed M. Bailly,

the Mayor of Paris, that preparations were making at the Queen’s residence

for a departure; and that the dressing-case was already sent off, under

pretence of its being presented to the Archduchess Christina.

[After the return from Varennes M. Bailly put this woman’s deposition into

the Queen’s hands.--MADAME CAMPAN.]

It was necessary, likewise, to send off all the diamonds belonging to the

Queen. Her Majesty shut herself up with me in a closet in the entresol,

looking into the garden of the Tuileries, and we packed all the diamonds,

rubies, and pearls she possessed in a small chest. The cases containing

these ornaments, being altogether of considerable bulk, had been

deposited, ever since the 6th of October, 1789, with the valet de chambre

who had the care of the Queen’s jewels. That faithful servant, himself

detecting the use that was to be made of the valuables, destroyed all the

boxes, which were, as usual, covered with red morocco, marked with the

cipher and arms of France. It would have been impossible for him to hide

them from the eyes of the popular inquisitors during the domiciliary

visits in January, 1793, and the discovery might have formed a ground of

accusation against the Queen.

I had but a few articles to place in the box when the Queen was compelled

to desist from packing it, being obliged to go down to cards, which began

at seven precisely. She therefore desired me to leave all the diamonds

upon the sofa, persuaded that, as she took the key of her closet herself,

and there was a sentinel under the window, no danger was to be apprehended

for that night, and she reckoned upon returning very early next day to

finish the work.

The same woman who had given information of the sending away of the

dressing-case was also deputed by the Queen to take care of her more

private rooms. No other servant was permitted to enter them; she renewed

the flowers, swept the carpets, etc. The Queen received back the key,

when the woman had finished putting them in order, from her own hands;

but, desirous of doing her duty well, and sometimes having the key in her

possession for a few minutes only, she had probably on that account

ordered one without the Queen’s knowledge. It is impossible not to

believe this, since the despatch of the diamonds was the subject of a

second accusation which the Queen heard of after the return from Varennes.

She made a formal declaration that her Majesty, with the assistance of

Madame Campan, had packed up all her jewelry some time before the

departure; that she was certain of it, as she had found the diamonds, and

the cotton which served to wrap them, scattered upon the sofa in the

Queen’s closet in the ‘entresol’; and most assuredly she could only have

seen these preparations in the interval between seven in the evening and

seven in the morning. The Queen having met me next day at the time

appointed, the box was handed over to Leonard, her Majesty’s

hairdresser,--[This unfortunate man, after having emigrated for some time,

returned to France, and perished upon the scaffold.--NOTE BY EDITOR]--who

left the country with the Duc de Choiseul. The box remained a long time

at Brussels, and at length got into the hands of Madame la Duchesse

d’Angouleme, being delivered to her by the Emperor on her arrival at

Vienna.

In order not to leave out any of the Queen’s diamonds, I requested the

first tirewoman to give me the body of the full dress, and all the

assortment which served for the stomacher of the full dress on days of

state, articles which always remained at the wardrobe.

The superintendent and the dame d’honneur being absent, the first

tirewoman required me to sign a receipt, the terms of which she dictated,

and which acquitted her of all responsibility for these diamonds. She had

the prudence to burn this document on the 10th of August, 1792.--[The date

of the sack of the Tuileries and slaughter of the Swiss Guard]--The Queen

having determined, upon the arrest at Varennes, not to have her diamonds

brought back to France, was often anxious about them during the year which

elapsed between that period and the 10th of August, and dreaded above all

things that such a secret should be discovered.

In consequence of a decree of the Assembly, which deprived the King of the

custody of the Crown diamonds, the Queen had at this time already given up

those which she generally used.

She preferred the twelve brilliants called Hazarins, from the name of the

Cardinal who had enriched the treasury with them, a few rose-cut diamonds,

and the Sanci. She determined to deliver, with her own hands, the box

containing them to the commissioner nominated by the National Assembly to

place them with the Crown diamonds. After giving them to him, she offered

him a row of pearls of great beauty, saying to him that it had been

brought into France by Anne of Austria; that it was invaluable, on account

of its rarity; that, having been appropriated by that Princess to the use

of the Queens and Dauphinesses, Louis XV. had placed it in her hands on

her arrival in France; but that she considered it national property.

“That is an open question, Madame,” said the commissary. “Monsieur,”

replied the Queen, “it is one for me to decide, and is now settled.”

My father-in-law, who was dying of the grief he felt for the misfortunes

of his master and mistress, strongly interested and occupied the thoughts

of the Queen. He had been saved from the fury of the populace in the

courtyard of the Tuileries.

On the day on which the King was compelled by an insurrection to give up a

journey to St. Cloud, her Majesty looked upon this trusty servant as

inevitably lost, if, on going away, she should leave him in the apartment

he occupied in the Tuileries. Prompted by her apprehensions, she ordered

M. Vicq-d’Azyr, her physician, to recommend him the waters of Mont d’Or in

Auvergne, and to persuade him to set off at the latter end of May. At the

moment of my going away the Queen assured me that the grand project would

be executed between the 15th and the 20th of June; that as it was not my

month to be on duty, Madame Thibaut would take the journey; but that she

had many directions to give me before I went. She then desired me to

write to my aunt, Madame Cardon, who was by that time in possession of the

clothes which I had ordered, that as soon as she should receive a letter

from M. Augur, the date of which should be accompanied with a B, an L, or

an M, she was to proceed with her property to Brussels, Luxembourg, or

Montmedy. She desired me to explain the meaning of these three letters

clearly to my sister, and to leave them with her in writing, in order that

at the moment of my going away she might be able to take my place in

writing to Arras.

The Queen had a more delicate commission for me; it was to select from

among my acquaintance a prudent person of obscure rank, wholly devoted to

the interests of the Court, who would be willing to receive a portfolio

which she was to give up only to me, or some one furnished with a note

from the Queen. She added that she would not travel with this portfolio,

and that it was of the utmost importance that my opinion of the fidelity

of the person to whom it was to be entrusted should be well founded. I

proposed to her Madame Vallayer Coster, a painter of the Academy, and an

amiable and worthy artist, whom I had known from my infancy. She lived in

the galleries of the Louvre. The choice seemed a good one. The Queen

remembered that she had made her marriage possible by giving her a place

in the financial offices, and added that gratitude ought sometimes to be

reckoned on. She then pointed out to me the valet belonging to her

toilet, whom I was to take with me, to show him the residence of Madame

Coster, so that he might not mistake it when he should take the portfolio

to her. The day before her departure the Queen particularly recommended

me to proceed to Lyons and the frontiers as soon as she should have

started. She advised me to take with me a confidential person, fit to

remain with M. Campan when I should leave him, and assured me that she

would give orders to M. ------ to set off as soon as she should be known

to be at the frontiers in order to protect me in going out. She

condescended to add that, having a long journey to make in foreign

countries, she determined to give me three hundred louis.

I bathed the Queen’s hands with tears at the moment of this sorrowful

separation; and, having money at my disposal, I declined accepting her

gold. I did not dread the road I had to travel in order to rejoin her;

all my apprehension was that by treachery or miscalculation a scheme, the

safety of which was not sufficiently clear to me, should fail. I could

answer for all those who belonged to the service immediately about the

Queen’s person, and I was right; but her wardrobe woman gave me

well-founded reason for alarm. I mentioned to the Queen many

revolutionary remarks which this woman had made to me a few days before.

Her office was directly under the control of the first femme de chambre,

yet she had refused to obey the directions I gave her, talking insolently

to me about “hierarchy overturned, equality among men,” of course more

especially among persons holding offices at Court; and this jargon, at

that time in the mouths of all the partisans of the Revolution, was

terminated by an observation which frightened me. “You know many

important secrets, madame,” said this woman to me, “and I have guessed

quite as many. I am not a fool; I see all that is going forward here in

consequence of the bad advice given to the King and Queen; I could

frustrate it all if I chose.” This argument, in which I had been promptly

silenced, left me pale and trembling. Unfortunately, as I began my

narrative to the Queen with particulars of this woman’s refusal to obey

me,--and sovereigns are all their lives importuned with complaints upon

the rights of places,--she believed that my own dissatisfaction had much

to do with the step I was taking; and she did not sufficiently fear the

woman. Her office, although a very inferior one, brought her in nearly

fifteen thousand francs a year. Still young, tolerably handsome, with

comfortable apartments in the entresols of the Tuileries, she saw a great

deal of company, and in the evening had assemblies, consisting of deputies

of the revolutionary party. M. de Gouvion, major-general of the National

Guard, passed almost every day with her; and it is to be presumed that she

had long worked for the party in opposition to the Court. The Queen asked

her for the key of a door which led to the principal vestibule of the

Tuileries, telling her she wished to have a similar one, that she might

not be under the necessity of going out through the pavilion of Flora. M.

de Gouvion and M. de La Fayette would, of course, be apprised of this

circumstance, and well-informed persons have assured me that on the very

night of the Queen’s departure this wretched woman had a spy with her, who

saw the royal family set off.

As soon as I had executed all the Queen’s orders, on the 30th of May,

1791, I set out for Auvergne, and was settled in the gloomy narrow valley

of Mont d’Or, when, about four in the afternoon of the 25th of June, I

heard the beat of a drum to call the inhabitants of the hamlet together.

When it had ceased I heard a hairdresser from Bresse proclaim in the

provincial dialect of Auvergne: “The King and Queen were taking flight in

order to ruin France, but I come to tell you that they are stopped, and

are well guarded by a hundred thousand men under arms.” I still ventured

to hope that he was repeating only a false report, but he went on: “The

Queen,” with her well-known haughtiness, lifted up the veil which covered

her face, and said to the citizens who were upbraiding the King, “Well,

since you recognise your sovereign, respect him.” Upon hearing these

expressions, which the Jacobin club of Clermont could not have invented, I

exclaimed, “The news is true!”

I immediately learnt that, a courier being come from Paris to Clermont,

the ‘procureur’ of the commune had sent off messengers to the chief places

of the canton; these again sent couriers to the districts, and the

districts in like manner informed the villages and hamlets which they

contained. It was through this ramification, arising from the

establishment of clubs, that the afflicting intelligence of the misfortune

of my sovereigns reached me in the wildest part of France, and in the

midst of the snows by which we were environed.

On the 28th I received a note written in a hand which I recognised as that

of M. Diet,--[This officer was slain in the Queen’s chamber on the 10th of

August]--usher of the Queen’s chamber, but dictated by her Majesty. It

contained these words: “I am this moment arrived; I have just got into my

bath; I and my family exist, that is all. I have suffered much. Do not

return to Paris until I desire you. Take good care of my poor Campan,

soothe his sorrow. Look for happier times.” This note was for greater

safety addressed to my father-in-law’s valet-de-chambre. What were my

feelings on perceiving that after the most distressing crisis we were

among the first objects of the kindness of that unfortunate Princess!

M. Campan having been unable to benefit by the waters of Mont d’Or, and

the first popular effervescence having subsided, I thought I might return

to Clermont. The committee of surveillance, or that of general safety,

had resolved to arrest me there; but the Abbe Louis, formerly a

parliamentary counsellor, and then a member of the Constituent Assembly,

was kind enough to affirm that I was in Auvergne solely for the purpose of

attending my father-in-law, who was extremely ill. The precautions

relative to my absence from Paris were limited to placing us under the

surveillance of the ‘procureur’ of the commune, who was at the same time

president of the Jacobin club; but he was also a physician of repute, and

without having any doubt that he had received secret orders relative to

me, I thought it would favour the chances of our safety if I selected him

to attend my patient. I paid him according to the rate given to the best

Paris physicians, and I requested him to visit us every morning and every

evening. I took the precaution to subscribe to no other newspaper than

the Moniteur. Doctor Monestier (for that was the physician’s name)

frequently took upon himself to read it to us. Whenever he thought proper

to speak of the King and Queen in the insulting and brutal terms at that

time unfortunately adopted throughout France, I used to stop him and say,

coolly, “Monsieur, you are here in company with the servants of Louis XVI.

and Marie Antoinette. Whatever may be the wrongs with which the nation

believes it has to reproach them, our principles forbid our losing sight

of the respect due to them from us.” Notwithstanding that he was an

inveterate patriot, he felt the force of this remark, and even procured

the revocation of a second order for our arrest, becoming responsible for

us to the committee of the Assembly, and to the Jacobin society.

The two chief women about the Dauphin, who had accompanied the Queen to

Varennes, Diet, her usher, and Camot, her garcon de toilette,--the women

on account of the journey, and the men in consequence of the denunciation

of the woman belonging to the wardrobe,--were sent to the prisons of the

Abbaye. After my departure the garcon de toilette whom I had taken to

Madame Vallayer Coster’s was sent there with the portfolio she had agreed

to receive. This commission could not escape the detestable spy upon the

Queen. She gave information that a portfolio had been carried out on the

evening of the departure, adding that the King had placed it upon the

Queen’s easy-chair, that the garcon de toilette wrapped it up in a napkin

and took it under his arm, and that she did not know where he had carried

it. The man, who was remarkable for his fidelity, underwent three

examinations without making the slightest disclosure. M. Diet, a man of

good family, a servant on whom the Queen placed particular reliance,

likewise experienced the severest treatment. At length, after a lapse of

three weeks, the Queen succeeded in obtaining the release of her servants.

The Queen, about the 15th of August, had me informed by letter that I

might come back to Paris without being under any apprehension of arrest

there, and that she greatly desired my return. I brought my father-in-law

back in a dying state, and on the day preceding that of the acceptation of

the constitutional act, I informed the Queen that he was no more. “The

loss of Lassonne and Campan,” said she, as she applied her handkerchief to

her streaming eyes, “has taught me how valuable such subjects are to their

masters. I shall never find their equals.”

I resumed my functions about the Queen on the 1st of September, 1791. She

was unable then to converse with me on all the lamentable events which had

occurred since the time of my leaving her, having on guard near her an

officer whom she dreaded more than all the others. She merely told me

that I should have some secret services to perform for her, and that she

would not create uneasiness by long conversations with me, my return being

a subject of suspicion. But next day the Queen, well knowing the

discretion of the officer who was to be on guard that night, had my bed

placed very near hers, and having obtained the favour of having the door

shut, when I was in bed she began the narrative of the journey, and the

unfortunate arrest at Varennes. I asked her permission to put on my gown,

and kneeling by her bedside I remained until three o’clock in the morning,

listening with the liveliest and most sorrowful interest to the account I

am about to repeat, and of which I have seen various details, of tolerable

exactness, in papers of the time.

The King entrusted Count Fersen with all the preparations for departure.

The carriage was ordered by him; the passport, in the name of Madame de

Korf, was procured through his connection with that lady, who was a

foreigner. And lastly, he himself drove the royal family, as their

coachman, as far as Bondy, where the travellers got into their berlin.

Madame Brunier and Madame Neuville, the first women of Madame and the

Dauphin, there joined the principal carriage. They were in a cabriolet.

Monsieur and Madame set out from the Luxembourg and took another road.

They as well as the King were recognised by the master of the last post in

France, but this man, devoting himself to the fortunes of the Prince, left

the French territory, and drove them himself as postilion. Madame

Thibaut, the Queen’s first woman, reached Brussels without the slightest

difficulty. Madame Cardon, from Arras, met with no hindrance; and

Leonard, the Queen’s hairdresser, passed through Varennes a few hours

before the royal family. Fate had reserved all its obstacles for the

unfortunate monarch.

Nothing worthy of notice occurred in the beginning of the journey. The

travellers were detained a short time, about twelve leagues from Paris, by

some repairs which the carriage required. The King chose to walk up one

of the hills, and these two circumstances caused a delay of three hours,

precisely at the time when it was intended that the berlin should have

been met, just before reaching Varennes, by the detachment commanded by M.

de Goguelat. This detachment was punctually stationed upon the spot fixed

on, with orders to wait there for the arrival of certain treasure, which

it was to escort; but the peasantry of the neighbourhood, alarmed at the

sight of this body of troops, came armed with staves, and asked several

questions, which manifested their anxiety. M. de Goguelat, fearful of

causing a riot, and not finding the carriage arrive as he expected,

divided his men into two companies, and unfortunately made them leave the

highway in order to return to Varennes by two cross roads. The King looked

out of the carriage at Ste. Menehould, and asked several questions

concerning the road. Drouet, the post-master, struck by the resemblance

of Louis to the impression of his head upon the assignats, drew near the

carriage, felt convinced that he recognised the Queen also, and that the

remainder of the travellers consisted of the royal family and their suite,

mounted his horse, reached Varennes by cross roads before the royal

fugitives, and gave the alarm.--[Varennes lies between Verdun and

Montmedy, and not far from the French frontier.]

The Queen began to feel all the agonies of terror; they were augmented by

the voice of a person unknown, who, passing close to the carriage in full

gallop, cried out, bending towards the window without slackening his

speed, “You are recognised!” They arrived with beating hearts at the

gates of Varennes without meeting one of the horsemen by whom they were to

have been escorted into the place. They were ignorant where to find their

relays, and some minutes were lost in waiting, to no purpose. The

cabriolet had preceded them, and the two ladies in attendance found the

bridge already blocked up with old carts and lumber. The town guards were

all under arms. The King at last entered Varennes. M. de Goguelat had

arrived there with his detachment. He came up to the King and asked him

if he chose to effect a passage by force! What an unlucky question to put

to Louis XVI., who from the very beginning of the Revolution had shown in

every crisis the fear he entertained of giving the least order which might

cause an effusion of blood! “Would it be a brisk action?” said the King.

“It is impossible that it should be otherwise, Sire,” replied the

aide-decamp. Louis XVI. was unwilling to expose his family. They

therefore went to the house of a grocer, Mayor of Varennes. The King

began to speak, and gave a summary of his intentions in departing,

analogous to the declaration he had made at Paris. He spoke with warmth

and affability, and endeavoured to demonstrate to the people around him

that he had only put himself, by the step he had taken, into a fit

situation to treat with the Assembly, and to sanction with freedom the

constitution which he would maintain, though many of its articles were

incompatible with the dignity of the throne, and the force by which it was

necessary that the sovereign should be surrounded. Nothing could be more

affecting, added the Queen, than this moment, in which the King felt bound

to communicate to the very humblest class of his subjects his principles,

his wishes for the happiness of his people, and the motives which had

determined him to depart.

Whilst the King was speaking to this mayor, whose name was Sauce, the

Queen, seated at the farther end of the shop, among parcels of soap and

candles, endeavoured to make Madame Sauce understand that if she would

prevail upon her husband to make use of his municipal authority to cover

the flight of the King and his family, she would have the glory of having

contributed to restore tranquillity to France. This woman was moved; she

could not, without streaming eyes, see herself thus solicited by her

Queen; but she could not be got to say anything more than, “Bon Dieu,

Madame, it would be the destruction of M. Sauce; I love my King, but I

love my husband too, you must know, and he would be answerable, you see.”

Whilst this strange scene was passing in the shop, the people, hearing

that the King was arrested, kept pouring in from all parts. M. de

Goguelat, making a last effort, demanded of the dragoons whether they

would protect the departure of the King; they replied only by murmurs,

dropping the points of their swords. Some person unknown fired a pistol

at M. de Goguelat; he was slightly wounded by the ball. M. Romeuf,

aide-de-camp to M. de La Fayette, arrived at that moment. He had been

chosen, after the 6th of October, 1789, by the commander of the Parisian

guard to be in constant attendance about the Queen. She reproached him

bitterly with the object of his mission. “If you wish to make your name

remarkable, monsieur,” said the Queen to him, “you have chosen strange and

odious means, which will produce the most fatal consequences.” This

officer wished to hasten their departure. The Queen, still cherishing the

hope of seeing M. de Bouille arrive with a sufficient force to extricate

the King from his critical situation, prolonged her stay at Varennes by

every means in her power.

The Dauphin’s first woman pretended to be taken ill with a violent colic,

and threw herself upon a bed, in the hope of aiding the designs of her

superiors; she went and implored for assistance. The Queen understood her

perfectly well, and refused to leave one who had devoted herself to follow

them in such a state of suffering. But no delay in departing was allowed.

The three Body Guards (Valory, Du Moustier, and Malden) were gagged and

fastened upon the seat of the carriage. A horde of National Guards,

animated with fury and the barbarous joy with which their fatal triumph

inspired them, surrounded the carriage of the royal family.

The three commissioners sent by the Assembly to meet the King, MM. de

Latour-Maubourg, Barnave, and Potion, joined them in the environs of

Epernay. The two last mentioned got into the King’s carriage. The Queen

astonished me by the favourable opinion she had formed of Barnave. When I

quitted Paris a great many persons spoke of him only with horror. She told

me he was much altered, that he was full of talent and noble feeling. “A

feeling of pride which I cannot much blame in a young man belonging to the

Tiers Etat,” she said, “made him applaud everything which smoothed the

road to rank and fame for that class in which he was born. And if we get

the power in our own hands again, Barnave’s pardon is already written on

our hearts.” The Queen added, that she had not the same feeling towards

those nobles who had joined the revolutionary party, who had always

received marks of favour, often to the injury of those beneath them in

rank, and who, born to be the safeguard of the monarchy, could never be

pardoned for having deserted it. She then told me that Barnave’s conduct

upon the road was perfectly correct, while Potion’s republican rudeness

was disgusting; that the latter ate and drank in the King’s berlin in a

slovenly manner, throwing the bones of the fowls out through the window at

the risk of sending them even into the King’s face; lifting up his glass,

when Madame Elisabeth poured him out wine, to show her that there was

enough, without saying a word; that this offensive behaviour must have

been intentional, because the man was not without education; and that

Barnave was hurt at it. On being pressed by the Queen to take something,

“Madame,” replied Barnave, “on so solemn an occasion the deputies of the

National Assembly ought to occupy your Majesties solely about their

mission, and by no means about their wants.” In short, his respectful

delicacy, his considerate attentions, and all that he said, gained the

esteem not only of the Queen, but of Madame Elisabeth also.

The King began to talk to Petion about the situation of France, and the

motives of his conduct, which were founded upon the necessity of giving to

the executive power a strength necessary for its action, for the good even

of the constitutional act, since France could not be a republic. “Not yet,

‘tis true,” replied Petion, “because the French are not ripe enough for

that.” This audacious and cruel answer silenced the King, who said no

more until his arrival at Paris. Potion held the little Dauphin upon his

knees, and amused himself with curling the beautiful light hair of the

interesting child round his fingers; and, as he spoke with much

gesticulation, he pulled his locks hard enough to make the Dauphin cry

out. “Give me my son,” said the Queen to him; “he is accustomed to

tenderness and delicacy, which render him little fit for such

familiarity.”

The Chevalier de Dampierre was killed near the King’s carriage upon

leaving Varennes. A poor village cure, some leagues from the place where

the crime was committed, was imprudent enough to draw near to speak to the

King; the cannibals who surrounded the carriage rushed upon him. “Tigers,”

exclaimed Barnave, “have you ceased to be Frenchmen? Nation of brave men,

are you become a set of assassins?” These words alone saved the cure, who

was already upon the ground, from certain death. Barnave, as he spoke to

them, threw himself almost out of the coach window, and Madame Elisabeth,

affected by this noble burst of feeling, held him by the skirt of his

coat. The Queen, while speaking of this event, said that on the most

momentous occasions whimsical contrasts always struck her, and that even

at such a moment the pious Elisabeth holding Barnave by the flap of his

coat was a ludicrous sight.

The deputy was astonished in another way. Madame Elisabeth’s comments

upon the state of France, her mild and persuasive eloquence, and the, ease

and simplicity with which she talked to him, yet without sacrificing her

dignity in the slightest degree, appeared to him unique, and his heart,

which was doubtless inclined to right principles though he had followed

the wrong path, was overcome by admiration. The conduct of the two

deputies convinced the Queen of the total separation between the

republican and constitutional parties. At the inns where she alighted she

had some private conversation with Barnave. The latter said a great deal

about the errors committed by the royalists during the Revolution, adding

that he had found the interest of the Court so feebly and so badly

defended that he had been frequently tempted to go and offer it, in

himself, an aspiring champion, who knew the spirit of the age and nation.

The Queen asked him what was the weapon he would have recommended her to

use.

“Popularity, Madame.”

“And how could I use that,” replied her Majesty, “of which I have been

deprived?”

“Ah! Madame, it was much more easy for you to regain it, than for me to

acquire it.”

The Queen mainly attributed the arrest at Varennes to M. de Goguelat; she

said he calculated the time that would be spent in the journey

erroneously. He performed that from Montmedy to Paris before taking the

King’s last orders, alone in a post-chaise, and he founded all his

calculations upon the time he spent thus. The trial has been made since,

and it was found that a light carriage without any courier was nearly

three hours less in running the distance than a heavy carriage preceded by

a courier.

The Queen also blamed him for having quitted the high-road at

Pont-de-Sommevelle, where the carriage was to meet the forty hussars

commanded by him. She thought that he ought to have dispersed the very

small number of people at Varennes, and not have asked the hussars whether

they were for the King or the nation; that, particularly, he ought to have

avoided taking the King’s orders, as he was previously aware of the reply

M. d’Inisdal had received when it was proposed to carry off the King.

After all that the Queen had said to me respecting the mistakes made by M.

de Goguelat, I thought him of course disgraced. What was my surprise

when, having been set at liberty after the amnesty which followed the

acceptance of the constitution, he presented himself to the Queen, and was

received with the greatest kindness! She said he had done what he could,

and that his zeal ought to form an excuse for all the rest.

[Full details of the preparations for the flight to Varennes will be found

in “Le Comte de Fersen et La Cour de France,” Paris, Didot et Cie, 1878 (a

review of which was given in the Quarterly Review for July, 1880), and in

the “Memoirs of the Marquis de Bouille”, London, Cadell and Davis, 1797;

Count Fersen being the person who planned the actual escape, and De

Bouille being in command of the army which was to receive the King. The

plan was excellent, and would certainly have succeeded, if it had not been

for the royal family themselves. Marie Antoinette, it will have been seen

by Madame Campan’s account, nearly wrecked the plan from inability to do

without a large dressing or travelling case. The King did a more fatal

thing. De Bouille had pointed out the necessity for having in the King’s

carriage an officer knowing the route, and able to show himself to give

all directions, and a proper person had been provided. The King, however,

objected, as “he could not have the Marquis d’Agoult in the same carriage

with himself; the governess of the royal children, who was to accompany

them, having refused to abandon her privilege of constantly remaining with

her charge.” See “De Bouille,” pp. 307 and 334. Thus, when Louis was

recognised at the window of the carriage by Drouet, he was lost by the

very danger that had been foreseen, and this wretched piece of etiquette

led to his death.]

When the royal family was brought back from Varennes to the Tuileries, the

Queen’s attendants found the greatest difficulty in making their way to

her apartments; everything had been arranged so that the wardrobe woman,

who had acted as spy, should have the service; and she was to be assisted

in it only by her sister and her sister’s daughter.

M. de Gouvion, M. de La Fayette’s aide-de-camp, had this woman’s portrait

placed at the foot of the staircase which led to the Queen’s apartments,

in order that the sentinel should not permit any other women to make their

way in. As soon as the Queen was informed of this contemptible

precaution, she told the King of it, who sent to ascertain the fact. His

Majesty then called for M. de La Fayette, claimed freedom in his

household, and particularly in that of the Queen, and ordered him to send

a woman in, whom no one but himself could confide out of the palace. M. de

La Fayette was obliged to comply.

On the day when the return of the royal family was expected, there were no

carriages in motion in the streets of Paris. Five or six of the Queen’s

women, after being refused admittance at all the other gates, went with

one of my sisters to that of the Feuillans, insisting that the sentinel

should admit them. The poissardes attacked them for their boldness in

resisting the order excluding them. One of them seized my sister by the

arm, calling her the slave of the Austrian. “Hear me,” said my sister to

her, “I have been attached to the Queen ever since I was fifteen years of

age; she gave me my marriage portion; I served her when she was powerful

and happy. She is now unfortunate. Ought I to abandon her?”--“She is

right,” cried the poissardes; “she ought not to abandon her mistress; let

us make an entry for them.” They instantly surrounded the sentinel,

forced the passage, and introduced the Queen’s women, accompanying them to

the terrace of the Feuillans. One of these furies, whom the slightest

impulse would have driven to tear my sister to pieces, taking her under

her protection, gave her advice by which she might reach the palace in

safety. “But of all things, my dear friend,” said she to her, “pull off

that green ribbon sash; it is the color of that D’Artois, whom we will

never forgive.”

The measures adopted for guarding the King were rigorous with respect to

the entrance into the palace, and insulting as to his private apartments.

The commandants of battalion, stationed in the salon called the grand

cabinet, and which led to the Queen’s bedchamber, were ordered to keep the

door of it always open, in order that they might have their eyes upon the

royal family. The King shut this door one day; the officer of the guard

opened it, and told him such were his orders, and that he would always

open it; so that his Majesty in shutting it gave himself useless trouble.

It remained open even during the night, when the Queen was in bed; and the

officer placed himself in an armchair between the two doors, with his head

turned towards her Majesty. They only obtained permission to have the

inner door shut when the Queen was rising. The Queen had the bed of her

first femme de chambre placed very near her own; this bed, which ran on

casters, and was furnished with curtains, hid her from the officer’s

sight.

Madame de Jarjaye, my companion, who continued her functions during the

whole period of my absence, told me that one night the commandant of

battalion, who slept between the two doors, seeing that she was sleeping

soundly, and that the Queen was awake, quitted his post and went close to

her Majesty, to advise her as to the line of conduct she should pursue.

Although she had the kindness to desire him to speak lower in order that

he might not disturb Madame de Jarjaye’s rest, the latter awoke, and

nearly died with fright at seeing a man in the uniform of the Parisian

guard so near the Queen’s bed. Her Majesty comforted her, and told her

not to rise; that the person she saw was a good Frenchman, who was

deceived respecting the intentions and situation of his sovereign and

herself, but whose conversation showed sincere attachment to the King.

There was a sentinel in the corridor which runs behind the apartments in

question, where there is a staircase, which was at that time an inner one,

and enabled the King and Queen to communicate freely. This post, which

was very onerous, because it was to be kept four and twenty hours, was

often claimed by Saint Prig, an actor belonging to the Theatre Francais.

He took it upon himself sometimes to contrive brief interviews between the

King and Queen in this corridor. He left them at a distance, and gave

them warning if he heard the slightest noise. M. Collot, commandant of

battalion of the National Guard, who was charged with the military duty of

the Queen’s household, in like manner softened down, so far as he could

with prudence, all, the revolting orders he received; for instance, one to

follow the Queen to the very door of her wardrobe was never executed. An

officer of the Parisian guard dared to speak insolently of the Queen in

her own apartment. M. Collot wished to make a complaint to M. de La

Fayette against him, and have him dismissed. The Queen opposed it, and

condescended to say a few words of explanation and kindness to the man; he

instantly became one of her most devoted partisans.

The first time I saw her Majesty after the unfortunate catastrophe of the

Varennes journey, I found her getting out of bed; her features were not

very much altered; but after the first kind words she uttered to me she

took off her cap and desired me to observe the effect which grief had

produced upon her hair. It had become, in one single night, as white as

that of a woman of seventy. Her Majesty showed me a ring she had just had

mounted for the Princesse de Lamballe; it contained a lock of her whitened

hair, with the inscription, “Blanched by sorrow.” At the period of the

acceptance of the constitution the Princess wished to return to France.

The Queen, who had no expectation that tranquillity would be restored,

opposed this; but the attachment of Madame de Lamballe to the royal family

impelled her to come and seek death.

When I returned to Paris most of the harsh precautions were abandoned; the

doors were not kept open; greater respect was paid to the sovereign; it

was known that the constitution soon to be completed would be accepted,

and a better order of things was hoped for.

CHAPTER VI.

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, 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 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.]

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.

CHAPTER VII.

In the beginning of the year 1792, a worthy priest requested a private

interview with me. He had learned the existence of a new libel by Madame

de Lamotte. He told me that the people who came from London to get it

printed in Paris only desired gain, and that they were ready to deliver

the manuscript to him for a thousand louis, if he could find any friend of

the Queen disposed to make that sacrifice for her peace; that he had

thought of me, and if her Majesty would give him the twenty-four thousand

francs, he would hand the manuscript to me.

I communicated this proposal to the Queen, who rejected it, and desired me

to answer that at the time when she had power to punish the hawkers of

these libels she deemed them so atrocious and incredible that she despised

them too much to stop them; that if she were imprudent and weak enough to

buy a single one of them, the Jacobins might possibly discover the

circumstance through their espionage; that were this libel brought up, it

would be printed nevertheless, and would be much more dangerous when they

apprised the public of the means she had used to suppress it.

Baron d’Aubier, gentleman-in-ordinary to the King, and my particular

friend, had a good memory and a clear way of communicating the substance

of the debates and decrees of the National Assembly. I went daily to the

Queen’s apartments to repeat all this to the King, who used to say, on

seeing me, “Ah! here’s the Postillon par Calais,”--a newspaper of the

time.

M. d’Aubier one day said to me: “The Assembly has been much occupied with

an information laid by the workmen of the Sevres manufactory. They

brought to the President’s office a bundle of pamphlets which they said

were the life of Marie Antoinette. The director of the manufactory was

ordered up to the bar, and declared he had received orders to burn the

printed sheets in question in the furnaces used for baking his china.”

While I was relating this business to the Queen the King coloured and held

his head down over his plate. The Queen said to him, “Do you know

anything about this, Sire?” The King made no answer. Madame Elisabeth

requested him to explain what it meant. Louis was still silent. I

withdrew hastily. A few minutes afterwards the Queen came to my room and

informed me that the King, out of regard for her, had purchased the whole

edition struck off from the manuscript which I had mentioned to her, and

that M. de Laporte had not been able to devise any more secret way of

destroying the work than that of having it burnt at Sevres, among two

hundred workmen, one hundred and eighty of whom must, in all probability,

be Jacobins! She told me she had concealed her vexation from the King;

that he was in consternation, and that she could say nothing, since his

good intentions and his affection for her had been the cause of the

mistake.

[M. de Laporte had by order of the King bought up the whole edition of the

“Memoirs” of the notorious Madame de Lamotte against the Queen. Instead

of destroying them immediately, he shut them up in one of the closets in

his house, The alarming and rapid growth of the rebellion, the arrogance

of the crowd of brigands, who in great measure composed the populace of

Paris, and the fresh excesses daily resulting from it, rendered the

intendant of the civil list apprehensive that some mob might break into

his house, carry off these “Memoirs,” and spread them among the public.

In order to prevent this he gave orders to have the “Memoirs” burnt with

every necessary precaution; and the clerk who received the order entrusted

the execution of it to a man named Riston, a dangerous Intriguer, formerly

an advocate of Nancy, who had a twelve-month before escaped the gallows by

favour of the new principles and the patriotism of the new tribunals,

although convicted of forging the great seal, and fabricating decrees of

the council. This Riston, finding himself entrusted with a commission

which concerned her Majesty, and the mystery attending which bespoke

something of importance, was less anxious to execute it faithfully than to

make a parade of this mark of confidence. On the 30th of May, at ten in

the morning, he had the sheets carried to the porcelain manufactory at

Sevres, in a cart which he himself accompanied, and made a large fire of

them before all the workmen, who were expressly forbidden to approach it.

All these precautions, and the suspicions to which they gave rise, under

such critical circumstances, gave so much publicity to this affair that it

was denounced to the Assembly that very night. Brissot, and the whole

Jacobin party, with equal effrontery and vehemence, insisted that the

papers thus secretly burnt could be no other than the registers and

documents of the correspondence of the Austrian committee. M. de Laporte

was ordered to the bar, and there gave the most precise account of the

circumstances. Riston was also called up, and confirmed M. de Laporte’s

deposition. But these explanations, however satisfactory, did not calm

the violent ferment raised in the Assembly by this affair.--“Memoirs of

Bertrand de Molleville.”]

Some time afterwards the Assembly received a denunciation against M. de

Montmorin. The ex-minister was accused of having neglected forty

despatches from M. Genet, the charge d’affaires from France in Russia, not

having even unsealed them, because M. Genet acted on constitutional

principles. M. de Montmorin appeared at the bar to answer this

accusation. Whatever distress I might feel in obeying the order I had

received from the King to go and give him an account of the sitting, I

thought I ought not to fail in doing so. But instead of giving my brother

his family name, I merely said “your Majesty’s charge d’affaires at St.

Petersburg.”

The King did me the favour to say that he noticed a reserve in my account,

of which he approved. The Queen condescended to add a few obliging

remarks to those of the King. However, my office of journalist gave me in

this instance so much pain that I took an opportunity, when the King was

expressing his satisfaction to me at the manner in which I gave him this

daily account, to tell him that its merits belonged wholly to M. d’Aubier;

and I ventured to request the King to suffer that excellent man to give

him an account of the sittings himself. I assured the King that if he

would permit it, that gentleman might proceed to the Queen’s apartments

through mine unseen; the King consented to the arrangement. Thenceforward

M. d’Aubier gave the King repeated proofs of zeal and attachment.

The Cure of St. Eustache ceased to be the Queen’s confessor when he took

the constitutional oath. I do not remember the name of the ecclesiastic

who succeeded him; I only know that he was conducted into her apartments

with the greatest mystery. Their Majesties did not perform their Easter

devotions in public, because they could neither declare for the

constitutional clergy, nor act so as to show that they were against them.

The Queen did perform her Easter devotions in 1792; but she went to the

chapel attended only by myself. She desired me beforehand to request one

of my relations, who was her chaplain, to celebrate a mass for her at five

o’clock in the morning. It was still dark; she gave me her arm, and I

lighted her with a taper. I left her alone at the chapel door. She did

not return to her room until the dawn of day.

Dangers increased daily. The Assembly were strengthened in the eyes of

the people by the hostilities of the foreign armies and the army of the

Princes. The communication with the latter party became more active; the

Queen wrote almost every day. M. de Goguelat possessed her confidence for

all correspondence with the foreign parties, and I was obliged to have him

in my apartments; the Queen asked for him very frequently, and at times

which she could not previously appoint.

All parties were exerting themselves either to ruin or to save the King.

One day I found the Queen extremely agitated; she told me she no longer

knew where she was; that the leaders of the Jacobins offered themselves to

her through the medium of Dumouriez; or that Dumouriez, abandoning the

Jacobins, had come and offered himself to her; that she had granted him an

audience; that when alone with her, he had thrown himself at her feet, and

told her that he had drawn the ‘bonnet rouge’ over his head to the very

ears; but that he neither was nor could be a Jacobin; that the Revolution

had been suffered to extend even to that rabble of destroyers who,

thinking of nothing but pillage, were ripe for anything, and might furnish

the Assembly with a formidable army, ready to undermine the remains of a

throne already but too much shaken. Whilst speaking with the utmost

ardour he seized the Queen’s hand and kissed it with transport,

exclaiming, “Suffer yourself to be saved!” The Queen told me that the

protestations of a traitor were not to be relied on; that the whole of

his conduct was so well known that undoubtedly the wisest course was not

to trust to it; that, moreover, the Princes particularly recommended

that no confidence should be placed in any proposition emanating from

within the kingdom; that the force without became imposing; and that it

was better to rely upon their success, and upon the protection due from

Heaven to a sovereign so virtuous as Louis XVI. and to so just a cause.

[The sincerity of General Dumouriez cannot be doubted in this instance.

The second volume of his Memoirs shows how unjust the mistrust and

reproaches of the Queen were. By rejecting his services, Marie Antoinette

deprived herself of her only remaining support. He who saved France in

the defiles of Argonne would perhaps have saved France before the 20th of

June, had he obtained the full confidence of Louis XVI. and the

Queen.--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

The constitutionalists, on their part, saw that there had been nothing

more than a pretence of listening to them. Barnave’s last advice was as

to the means of continuing, a few weeks longer, the Constitutional Guard,

which had been denounced to the Assembly, and was to be disbanded. The

denunciation against the Constitutional Guard affected only its staff, and

the Duc de Brissac. Barnave wrote to the Queen that the staff of the

guard was already attacked; that the Assembly was about to pass a decree

to reduce it; and he entreated her to prevail on the King, the very

instant the decree should appear, to form the staff afresh of persons

whose names he sent her. Barnave said that all who were set down in it

passed for decided Jacobins, but were not so in fact; that they, as well

as himself, were in despair at seeing the monarchical government attacked;

that they had learnt to dissemble their sentiments, and that it would be

at least a fortnight before the Assembly could know them well, and

certainly before it could succeed in making them unpopular; that it would

be necessary to take advantage of that short space of time to get away

from Paris, immediately after their nomination. The Queen was of opinion

that she ought not to yield to this advice. The Duc de Brissac was sent

to Orleans, and the guard was disbanded.

Barnave, seeing that the Queen did not follow his counsel in anything, and

convinced that she placed all her reliance on assistance from abroad,

determined to quit Paris. He obtained a last audience. “Your

misfortunes, Madame,” said he, “and those which I anticipate for France,

determined me to sacrifice myself to serve you. I see, however, that my

advice does not agree with the views of your Majesties. I augur but

little advantage from the plan you are induced to pursue,--you are too

remote from your succours; you will be lost before they reach you. Most

ardently do I wish I may be mistaken in so lamentable a prediction; but I

am sure to pay with my head for the interest your misfortunes have raised

in me, and the services I have sought to render you. I request, for my

sole reward, the honour of kissing your hand.” The Queen, her eyes

suffused with tears, granted him that favour, and remained impressed with

a favourable idea of his sentiments. Madame Elisabeth participated in

this opinion, and the two Princesses frequently spoke of Barnave. The

Queen also received M. Duport several times, but with less mystery. Her

connection with the constitutional deputies transpired. Alexandre de

Lameth was the only one of the three who survived the vengeance of the

Jacobins.

[Barnave was arrested at Grenoble. He remained in prison in that town

fifteen months, and his friends began to hope that he would be forgotten,

when an order arrived that he should be removed to Paris. At first he was

imprisoned in the Abbaye, but transferred to the Conciergerie, and almost

immediately taken before the revolutionary tribunal. He appeared there

with wonderful firmness, summed up the services he had rendered to the

cause of liberty with his usual eloquence, and made such an impression

upon the numerous auditors that, although accustomed to behold only

conspirators worthy of death in all those who appeared before the

tribunal, they themselves considered his acquittal certain. The decree of

death was read amidst the deepest silence; but Barnave’a firmness was

immovable. When he left the court, he cast upon the judges, the jurors,

and the public looks expressive of contempt and indignation. He was led

to his fate with the respected Duport du Tertre, one of the last ministers

of Louis XVI. when he had ascended the scaffold, Barnave stamped, raised

his eyes to heaven, and said: “This, then, is the reward of all that I

have done for liberty!” He fell on the 29th of October, 1793, in the

thirty-second year of his age; his bust was placed in the Grenoble Museum.

The Consular Government placed his statue next to that of Vergniaud, on

the great staircase of the palace of the Senate.--“Biographie de

Bruxelles.”]