“The Maréchale de Noailles, the Duchesse d’Ayen, her daughter-in-law, and the Vicomtesse de Noailles, her granddaughter, were detained prisoners in their own house from November, 1793, till April, 1794. The first I only knew by sight, but was well acquainted with the two others, whom I generally visited once a week.
“Terror and crime were increasing together; victims were becoming more numerous. One day, as the ladies were exhorting each other to prepare for death, I said to them, as by foresight: ‘If you go to the scaffold, and if God gives me strength to do so, I shall accompany you.’
“They took me at my word, and eagerly exclaimed: ‘Will you promise to do so?’ For one moment I hesitated; ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘and so that you may easily recognize me, I will wear a dark blue coat and a red waistcoat.’ After that they often reminded me of my promise.
“In the month of April, 1794, during Easter week, they were all three conveyed to the Luxembourg. I had frequent accounts of them through M. Grellet, whose delicate attentions and zealous services were of such service both to them and to their children. I was often reminded of my promise.
“On the 27th of June, on a Monday or a Friday, he came to beg of me to fulfil the engagement I had taken with the Maréchal de Mouchy and his wife.
“I went to the Palais de Justice, and succeeded in entering the court. I stood very near, with my eyes fixed upon them during a quarter of an hour. M. and Madame de Mouchy, whom I had only seen once at their own house, and whom I knew better than they knew me, could not distinguish me in the crowd. God inspired me, and with His help I did all I could for them. The Maréchal was singularly edifying, and prayed aloud with all his heart.
“The day before, on leaving the Luxembourg, he had said to those who had given him marks of sympathy: ‘At seventeen years of age I entered the breach for my king; at seventy-seven I mount the scaffold for my God; my friends, I am not to be pitied.’
“I avoid details which would become interminable. That day I thought it useless to go as far as the guillotine; besides, my courage failed me. This was ominous for the fulfilment of the promise I had made to their relations, who were thrown into the deepest affliction by this catastrophe. They had all been confined in the same prison, and had thus been of great comfort to each other.
“I could say much about the numerous and dismal processions which preceded or followed that of the 27th, and which were happy or miserable according to the state of mind of those who composed them; sad they always were, even when every exterior sign denoted resignation, and promised a Christian death; but truly heart-rending when the doomed victims had none of these feelings, and seemed about to pass from the sufferings of this world to those of the next.
“On the 22d of July, 1794, on a Tuesday, between eight and ten o’clock in the morning, I was just going out. I heard a knock. I opened the door and saw the Noailles children with their tutor, M. Grellet. The children were cheerful, as is usually the case at that age, but under their merriment was concealed a sadness of heart caused by their recent losses and by their fears for the future. The tutor looked sad, careworn, pale, and haggard. ‘Let us go to your study,’ he said, ‘and leave the children in this room.’ We did so. He threw himself on a chair. ‘All is over, my friend,’ he said; ‘the ladies are before the Revolutionary Tribunal. I summon you to keep your word. I shall take the boys to Vincennes to see little Euphémie [their sister]. While in the wood I shall prepare these unfortunate children for their terrible loss.’