“She beheld my father at the head of a revolution, the issue of which it was impossible to foresee. Each calamity, each disturbance, was looked upon by her without the slightest illusion as to the success of her own cause. She was, however, supported by my father’s principles, and so convinced of the good it was in his power to do, and of the evil it was in his power to avert, that she bore with incredible fortitude the continual perils to which he was exposed. Never, has she often told us, did she see him leave the house during that period without thinking that she was bidding him adieu for the last time. Although no one could be more terrified than she was when those whom she loved were in danger, still, during that time she was superior to her usual self, devoted in common with my father to the hope of preventing crime.
“The various events of the Revolution, the dangers incurred by my father, the manner in which he supported every principle of justice and of liberty against all parties, form the history of my mother’s anxieties and consolations during two years and a half. You have read in the history of the Revolution that considerable uproar was raised on the Monday of Passion Week, 1791, to prevent the king from going to Saint Cloud, where he wished to receive the sacrament from the hands of priests who had not taken the oath to support the constitution. The king did not put this plan into execution, notwithstanding the endeavors of my father, who entreated Louis XVI. to persist in his intention, which he undertook to have executed. The king refused.
“My father, displeased with the National Guard, who had but feebly supported him in presence of the populace, and with the king’s weakness, which rendered it impossible to retrieve the faults committed on that day, thought fit to resign the command of the National Guard of Paris, and to avoid all entreaties, he quitted his own house. My mother remained at home, transported with joy at the resolution he had taken, and was charged by him to receive in his stead the municipality and the sixty battalions who came to implore him to resume his command. She replied to each individual in the words which my father himself would have dictated, carefully marking by her demeanor the distinction she made between the most respectable chefs de bataillon, and those who, like Santerre, had necessitated by their misconduct my father’s resignation, and who that day all united in taking the same step and repeating the same protestations. My mother, perplexed as she was in performing so difficult a task, was overjoyed at the thought that my father had returned to private life. This satisfaction lasted four days. Having thus marked his displeasure at disorders which he had not been able to prevent, my father yielded to the general entreaties. He resumed his command, and my mother her trials and anxieties.
“On the 21st of June of the same year, 1791, the king left Paris secretly, but was soon brought back from Varennes, where he had been arrested. In no other circumstance of my father’s life did my mother so much admire him as in the one which I am now relating. She beheld him, on the one hand, relinquishing all his republican tendencies to join in the wish of the majority; on the other hand, amidst the difficulties in which he was placed by his position, taking every responsibility, bearing all censure so as to insure the safety of the royal family, and spare them, as much as was in his power, every painful detail. My mother hastened to the Tuileries so soon as the queen began to receive, and before the constitution had been accepted. She found herself there the only woman connected with the patriote party, for she believed as my father did, that politics at such a moment ought not to rule personal intercourse.
RETURN OF THE ROYAL FAMILY TO PARIS.
“The Jacobins raised on the 17th of July a considerable outbreak. The brigands commenced by murdering two men. Martial law was proclaimed. It is difficult to form an idea of my mother’s mortal anguish while my father was in the Champ de Mars, exposed to the rage of an infuriated multitude, which dispersed crying out that my mother must be put to death and her head carried to meet him. I remember the fearful cries we heard, I remember the alarm of everybody in the house, and above all my mother’s joy at the thought that the brigands who were coming to attack her were no longer surrounding my father in the Champ de Mars. While embracing us with tears of joy, she took every necessary precaution against the approaching danger with the greatest calmness, and above all with the greatest relief of mind. The guard had been doubled, and was drawn up before the house, but the brigands were very near entering my mother’s apartment by the garden looking upon the Place du Palais-Bourbon, and were already climbing the low wall which protected us, when a body of cavalry passed on the Place and dispersed them.
“The[“The] constitution having been accepted by the king, the Constituent Assembly ended its sittings, and was replaced by the Legislative Assembly. My father gave up the command of the National Guard, and set out for Auvergne with my mother in the beginning of October. The journey was long, for they were often obliged to stop in order to acknowledge the marks of sympathy they received on the way. We followed in another carriage, and my brother joined us shortly afterwards.
“This interval of repose was of short duration. My father was appointed to the command of one of the three armies which were formed at that time. He left Chavaniac in December, 1791. This departure, the expectation of an approaching war, the dread of fresh disturbances, all contributed to renew my mother’s distress: those who might have shared her feelings had left her. My grandmother, and, soon after, my aunt de Noailles were obliged to return to Paris. She bade them a farewell which she was far from supposing was to be the last.
“War was declared in the month of March, 1792. It began by several skirmishes with my father’s army, in one of which M. de Gouvion, who had been major-general of the National Guard, was killed. My mother was filled with terror and harassed by fearful forebodings. The disturbances at home added to her dismay.