When Louis XVI. solemnly accepted the Constitution, and thus recomposed the nation, the Princess received an official letter from the Queen, inviting her to return to her situation. She consulted her old friends, who declared themselves of opinion that the Queen was not free, and, conceiving that there would be no safety in Paris, they advised her to take no notice of the Queen’s letter, and to let it be supposed that it had never come to hand. The Princess, however, having asked some other individuals, how they would advise her to act, they unfortunately replied: “Madam, you shared the prosperity of the Queen, and you have now a noble opportunity of proving your fidelity, particularly since you are no longer her favourite.” The Princess possessed lofty sentiments, warm affections, and was of a rather romantic turn of mind. She declared her intention of setting out next day for Paris. The unfortunate lady, therefore, returned to the capital, with a full knowledge of the danger to which she was exposed; and she fell the victim of generosity and noble sentiment. When the Princess determined on proceeding to Paris, my friends proposed that I should accompany[should accompany] her as one of her suite. My youth, together with the circumstance of my being almost a stranger in Paris, would have enabled me to pass unnoticed, and I might perhaps have been serviceable to her; but at the[the] moment of her departure, some difficulties arose which prevented me from accompanying her. However, I became her correspondent; and every other day I transmitted to her the absurd stories of every kind, which served to feed our hopes, and to which we failed not to give implicit credit. I continued my correspondence while we remained in the country; I even continued it after she had ceased to exist!
The extreme affliction in which I was plunged, on hearing of her dreadful fate, was occasionally augmented by the fear that my letters might perhaps have had some share in producing it. I happen to have now in my possession some lines which she wrote a few days before the horrible catastrophe that closed her existence. They are dated from my dungeon; for so she called the Pavilion of Flora, which she at that time occupied in the Tuileries.
END OF VOL. III.
ANDOVER: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY B. BENSLEY
Footnotes
[1]. The diameter of these cones, which were 60 feet high, was 104 feet at the base, and 60 at the top.
[2]. It was not until 1789, five years after the commencement of these works, that orders were given by government for taking the soundings of the harbour and ascertaining the state of the bottom. Up to that time, the works had been carried on solely on vague and imperfect notions!! (Mémoire du Baron Cachin, Inspecteur Général des ponts et chaussées.)
[3]. Some one who considers himself well informed has assured me that this is erroneous, as M. de Calonne did not reach Germany till the measure of emigration had been already decided upon; adding that, so far from having contrived or instigated it, he had actually censured it.
[4]. It is certainly an inherent weakness in our nature to deceive ourselves with respect to the sentiments that are entertained of us by others. At Coblentz, where we threw away so much money, where so many amiable and brilliant young men, more to be dreaded, no doubt, from an excess than a want of education, filled every house and visited every family, it was natural to believe that we should be beloved, and accordingly we thought ourselves adored. Well! at the time of my exile at the Cape of Good Hope, I was placed by a singular chance under the guard of an inhabitant of Coblentz, who had witnessed the brilliant moments of our emigration. I felt great pleasure in renewing the subject with him. We could not have any secrets on that head to conceal from one another; twenty-five years had elapsed. Well, then, “you were not absolutely hated,” said he, “but our real affection was reserved for your adversaries, for their cause was ours. Liberty had slipped in among us through you. There, in the midst of you, even before your eyes, we had formed clubs, and God knows how often we laughed in them at your expense, &c.” And it happened to him more than once, he assured me, when mingled with the crowd, which resounded with acclamations as we passed, to shout with a considerable number of his comrades, “Long live the French Princes, and may they drink a little in the Rhine! You spoke of the reception we gave you,” said he, “it was that which we gave to Custine, which you should have seen! There you would have had an opportunity of appreciating our real sentiments. We ran with enthusiasm to meet him: we crowned his soldiers; a great number of us enlisted in his army, and several of them became generals. As for me, I missed the opportunity of making my fortune.”