Even while melancholy presentiments afflicted this unfortunate Princess, manifestations of attachment to her person, and to the King’s cause, would frequently raise agreeable illusions in her mind, or present to her the affecting spectacle of tears shed for her sorrows.  I was one day, during this same visit to St. Cloud, witness of a very touching scene, which we took great care to keep secret.  It was four in the afternoon; the guard was not set; there was scarcely anybody at St. Cloud that day, and I was reading to the Queen, who was at work in a room the balcony of which hung over the courtyard.  The windows were closed, yet we heard a sort of inarticulate murmur from a great number of voices.  The Queen desired me to go and see what it was; I raised the muslin curtain, and perceived more than fifty persons beneath the balcony:  this group consisted of women, young and old, perfectly well dressed in the country costume, old chevaliers of St. Louis, young knights of Malta, and a few ecclesiastics.  I told the Queen it was probably an assemblage of persons residing in the neighbourhood who wished to see her.  She rose, opened the window, and appeared in the balcony; immediately all these worthy people said to her, in an undertone:  “Courage, Madame; good Frenchmen suffer for you, and with you; they pray for you.  Heaven will hear their prayers; we love you, we respect you, we will continue to venerate our virtuous King.”  The Queen burst into tears, and held her handkerchief to her eyes.  “Poor Queen! she weeps!” said the women and young girls; but the dread of exposing her Majesty, and even the persons who showed so much affection for her, to observation, prompted me to take her hand, and prevail upon her to retire into her room; and, raising my eyes, I gave the excellent people to understand that my conduct was dictated by prudence.  They comprehended me, for I heard, “That lady is right;” and afterwards, “Farewell, Madame!” from several of them; and all this in accents of feeling so true and so mournful, that I am affected at the recollection of them even after a lapse of twenty years.

A few days afterwards the insurrection of Nancy took place.

[The insurrection of the troops at Nancy broke out in August 1790, and was put down by Marechal de Bouille on the last day of that month.  See “Bouille,” p. 195.]

Only the ostensible cause is known; there was another, of which I might have been in full possession, if the great confusion I was in upon the subject had not deprived me of the power of paying attention to it.  I will endeavour to make myself understood.  In the early part of September the Queen, as she was going to bed, desired me to let all her people go, and to remain with her myself; when we were alone she said to me, “The King will come here at midnight.  You know that he has always shown you marks of distinction; he now proves his confidence in you by selecting you to write down the whole affair