We met at dusk. I would wander out to the Temple of Love—so aptly named; and there we would sit and dream and talk and, although we would not mention this, each time we wondered whether this was the last we should lie in each other’s arms.

The guards had deserted. I awoke one morning in Versailles to find that there were none to defend us.

On August 4th the King was obliged to give his consent to the abolition of feudalism; and to agree to his statue being set up on the site of the Bastille to be inscribed: “To the Restorer of Liberty to France.” This has never been erected and never will be now. Louis declared that while he was ready to give up all his own rights he was not prepared to give up those of others. Then there were cries that the King should be brought from Versailles to Paris and we wondered what this would mean.

A few weeks later La Fayette was drawing up a Declaration of the Rights of Man in the American style; this was the beginning of that decree which was to end all hereditary titles and declare all men equal.

La Fayette was, I believed, at times a little disturbed by the violence of the mob and sought to keep them in order, but there were occasions when he found this an impossibility; yet I believe that during the month st of August and September he did prevent them forcibly removing the King to the Louvre.

Mercy came to see me. How grave he was these days. And how avidly I listened to every word he uttered. He told me that he believed it was folly for the King to stay at Versailles. Axel was telling me this too, every time we met. He wanted us to escape. He assured me that we were living in perpetual danger.

“On the eastern frontier at Metz,* said Mercy, ‘the Mar quis de Bouille has twenty-five to thirty thousand men. They are loyalists whom he has taught to despise the canaille. They would fight for their King and their Queen. The King should be persuaded to leave for Metz without delay.”

I told Mercy that I agreed with this, and . others . had warded me of the need.

Mercy looked at me severely. He knew whom I meant by others. He, who had observed me so closely all the time I had been in France, first for my mother and then for my brother though never so assiduously for the latter as the former must know of my love for Axel. I looked at him defiantly; if he had dared to criticise me I should have reminded him that I was well aware of his own liaison of long standing with Mademoiselle Rosalie Levasseur. But he did not reproach me. Perhaps he too understood my need at this time; perhaps he felt that in my own interests it was good to have a friend so close that I could rely on completely.

He said: “I am glad that you have wise friends.”

And I knew what he meant.

But I still could not persuade Louis to leave. He could not run away, he said. No matter how his people behaved towards him he must always do his duty to them.

We were very unsure of La Fayette’s attitude towards us. He had sent National Guards to be on duty at the palace, and Mercy told me that he no doubt had had information of our efforts to persuade the King to escape to Metz.

In September the Regiment de Flandre came to Versailles and the officers of this regiment and those of the Body Guards decided to show their friendship for each other by dining together; and in view of the feelings of the day some of the sous-officiers and the soldiers were invited to join.

Louis offered them the theatre at Versailles for the occasion; tables were set upon the stage and members of the diminishing Court were invited to occupy the boxes.

I was afraid that the banquet would end in some disaster, which I was now expecting from all quarters, and I decided that Madame Campan should go, for I could always rely on her to give me a faithful account of what had happened.

Some of the Council had said that it would be good for the King and myself to be present, but I was against this, for I was so unpopular that I was afraid my appearance would be the sign for violence of some sort.

“Madame Campan,” I said, “I have been advised to attend this dinner but I feel it would be unwise to do so. I wish you to occupy one of the boxes and report to me what happens.”

She said she would take her niece and give me an accurate account of everything.

My husband went off hunting. It was astonishing how in the face of everything that happened he persisted in behaving as though life was going on normally. I sat in my children’s nursery, for I never liked to be far from them when danger seemed a little closer than usual.

It was while I was there that one of my women came to me and told me that the soldiers were behaving in a most loyal manner, and that the Due de Villeroi who was captain of the first company of guards, had invited all present to drink four toasts to the King, the Queen, the Dauphin and the Royal Family; and that this had been done, and although someone had proposed the toast of the Nation, link attention had been paid to this.

While she was talking to me, my husband returned from the hunt and I asked my woman to tell the King what she had told me.

“It might be well if we showed ourselves,” I said.

“If we do not, they will think we are afraid, and perhaps that would be worse than anything.”

He agreed with me, for in all our troubles I never saw Louis show the slightest fear for his own safety. I sent for Madame de Tourzel and asked her to bring the two children to me.

The Dauphin was very excited.

We are going to see the soldiers,” I told him.

Nothing could have pleased him more; he was all ready to see the soldiers. He thought Moufflet would like to see them; but I told him Moufflet could not come on this occasion.

We went to the theatre and showed Ourselves in the railed-in box which faced the stage. There was a hushed silence and then the cheering broke out.

“Vive Ie RoiVive la ReineV Yes, even Vive la Reine. My spirits lilted as they had not for a long time.

There in the theatre I felt that our cause was not hope less, that we had some friends and that I had allowed myself to be unduly alarmed by those people with the savage faces.

The tables had been set in the shape of a horseshoe and two hundred and ten places had been laid; and there sat those soldiers . those loyal soldiers whose cries of friend ship drowned the few dissenting voices.

They want us to go down to the stage,” said my husband, tears in his eyes; he was always deeply moved by his subjects displays of affection.

I picked up my son in my arms and carried him. I did not want him to be too far from me, and we went down on to the stage.

The Dauphin’s gaiety and delight charmed the soldiers and I stood him on the table while they drank his health. Then he wafted over the tables, being very careful not to tread on the glasses, and he told the men how he liked soldiers better than anything . better even than dogs; he thought he was going to be a soldier when he grew up.

They were enchanted. Who could help being? And there was lovely Mousseline, so happy because she believed that everything was coming right for us and the anxiety of the last months was over.

They began to sing one of the popular songs of the day by the musician Gretry—a good and loyal song:

‘0 Richard, 6 man Roi, Uunivers t’abandonne Sur la terre il nest done que moi Qui m’interesse a ta personnel It was wonderful to stand there, to see the triumph of my little son, the admiration these good men felt for my daughter; to see their loyalty to the King and their affection for me.

How I had missed it! I prayed then for another chance. Let everything be as it used to be and I would work with my husband for the good of the people of France.

That night I slept more peacefully than I had for a long time.

But in the morning I summoned Madame Campan and asked for her account of the affair.

She said she had been surprised when she saw us appear and she had been deeply moved by the singing of ‘0 Richard, 6 mm Roi’ and “Peut on affliger ce qu’on came?” which had followed it.

But,” I said, ‘you were not entirely happy?”

“Though many shouted for Your Majesties,” she told me, ‘there were some who did not; and there was one in the next box to that which I occupied with my niece who reproved us for shouting “Vive Ie Roi.” He said that American women would be contemptuous of us, screaming as we were for the life of one man. It was shocking, he said, to see handsome Frenchwomen brought up in such servile habits. To which, Madame, my niece replied that we had all lived close to the King and to do so was to love him, and he had better save his breath, for his disloyalty to a good King did not affect us one jot. “

I laughed.

“But was it not wonderful? They were so enthusiastic. They loved us and they wanted us to know it. We have seen so much of our enemies that we have forgotten our friends.”

She was less complacent than I; Dear Campan, she was always so much wiser.

The affair caused some consternation in Paris. The pamphleteers, fearing that more might wish to show their friendship, were feverishly printing their sheets. Marat and Desmoulins wrote of that evening as though it were an obscene orgy. They declared that we had all trampled the tricolour underfoot. Was it not time that someone slit the throat of the Austrian woman?

Bread had become more and more scarce in the capital. There was no flour to be had.

“They are hoarding the people’s flour at Versailles!”

was the cry which ‘was echoing through the streets of Paris.

The winter lay ahead—the cold and hungry winter—for October was with us.