E. H. Bearne
ROME
Mesdames de France, the two last remaining daughters of Louis XV., arrived in Rome and at once sent for Mme. Le Brun, who was delighted to see them again. They had with great difficulty succeeded in getting away, and had been most anxious to take their niece, Madame Elizabeth, with them. In vain they entreated her to come, she persisted in staying with the King and Queen, and sacrificed her life in so doing.
Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire set off early in 1791. Their whole journey was a perpetual danger. After getting their passports signed with difficulty by the Commune, they were denounced at Sèvres by a maid-servant, stopped by the Jacobins and accused of being concerned in plots and of taking money out of the country, and detained for a fortnight, when they managed to get permission to go on, and left at 10 o’clock on a Saturday night, arriving on Sunday morning at Fontainebleau, where they were again stopped and threatened by the mob, who were just going to be joined by the gardes nationaux when a hundred Chasseurs de Lorraine, luckily quartered there, charged the mob, opened the gates, and passed the carriages on. At Arnay-le-Duc they were detained for eleven days, and only allowed to proceed when the Comte de Narbonne appeared with a permission extorted by Mirabeau from the revolutionary government at Paris.
They hurried away just in time, crossed the Mont Cenis, which was covered with snow, and at the foot of which they were met by their nephew, the Comte d’Artois. The King of Sardinia, husband of their niece, [40] the eldest sister of Louis XVI. had sent four hundred soldiers to clear away the snow, and escorted by the Comte d’Artois they arrived safely at Turin where all the noblesse were assembled to receive them at the entrance of the royal palace. They arrived at Rome in April.
The disgraceful proceedings and cowardly, preposterous fear of two old ladies, which had made the radical government contemptible and ridiculous, caused the following absurd story to be published in a French newspaper:—
“Les chemises de Marat, ou l’arrestation de Mesdames, tantes du Roi à Arnay-le-Duc.
“Marat avait dit dans un journal que les chemises de Mesdames lui appartenaient. Les patriotes de province crurent de bonne foi que Mesdames avaient emporté les chemises de Marat, et les habitants d’Arnay-ci-devant-le-duc sachant qu’elles devaient passer par là, decidèrent qu’il fallait les arrêter pour leur, faire rendre les chemises qu’elles avaient voleés.... On les fait descendre de voiture et les officiers municipales avec leurs habits noirs, leur gravité, leurs écharpes, leur civism et leurs perruques, disent à Mesdames:
“(Air: ‘Rendez-moi mon écuelle de bois.’)