Had they but known what was passing in the Assembly, Marie Antoinette would in all probability have still found matter for some comfort and hope in the fierce mutual strife of the Jacobins and Girondins, which for some weeks kept the Assembly in a constant state of agitation; and she would have found even greater encouragement in the dissatisfaction which in many departments the people expressed at the late events; and in the conduct of La Fayette’s army, which at first cordially approved of and supported the town-council and magistrates of Sedan, who arrested and threw into prison the commissioners whom the Assembly had sent to announce the suspension of the royal authority.  But the intelligence of that demonstration in their favor never reached them, nor that of its suppression a few days later; when La Fayette, who, as on a former occasion, had committed himself to measures beyond his strength to carry out, was forced to fly from the country, and by a strange violation of military law was thrown into an Austrian prison.  Nor again, when for a moment the Duke of Brunswick appeared likely to realize the hopes on which Marie Antoinette had built so confidently, and by the capture of Longwy seemed to have opened to himself the road to Paris, did any tidings of his achievement come to the ears of those who had felt such deep interest in his operations.  After a time the ingenuity of Clery found a mode of obtaining for them some little knowledge of what was passing outside, by contriving that some of his friends should send criers to cry an abstract of the news contained in the daily journals under his windows, which he in his turn faithfully reported to them while employed in such menial offices about their persons as took off the attention of their guards, who day and night maintained an unceasing espial on all their actions and even words.

From the very first they had to endure strange privations for princes.  They had not a sufficient supply of clothes; the little dauphin, in particular, would have been wholly unprovided, had not the English embassadress, Lady Sutherland, whose son was of a similar age and size, sent in a stock of such as she thought might be wanted.  But as the garments thus received wore out, and as all means of replacing them were refused, the queen and princess were reduced to ply their own needles diligently to mend the clothes of the whole family, that they might not appear to their jailers, or to the occupants of the surrounding houses, who from their windows could command a view of the garden in which they took their daily walks, absolutely ragged.