The brutality of these words did not prevent my suddenly experiencing an indescribable feeling which partook almost equally of the love of life and the idea that I was going to see my son, and all that was dear to me, again.  A moment before I had thought less of death than of the pain which the steel, suspended over my head, would occasion me.  Death is seldom seen so close without striking his blow.  I heard every syllable uttered by the assassins, just as if I had been calm.

Five or six men seized me and my companions, and, having made us get up on benches placed before the windows, ordered us to call out, “The nation for ever!”

I passed over several corpses; I recognised that of the old Vicomte de Broves, to whom the Queen had sent me at the beginning of the night to desire him and another old man in her name to go home.  These brave men desired I would tell her Majesty that they had but too strictly obeyed the King’s orders in all circumstances under which they ought to have exposed their own lives in order to preserve his; and that for this once they would not obey, though they would cherish the recollection of the Queen’s goodness.

Near the grille, on the side next the bridge, the men who conducted me asked whither I wished to go.  Upon my inquiring, in my turn, whether they were at liberty to take me wherever I might wish to go, one of them, a Marseillais, asked me, giving me at the same time a push with the butt end of his musket, whether I still doubted the power of the people?  I answered “No,” and I mentioned the number of my brother-in-law’s house.  I saw my sister ascending the steps of the parapet of the bridge, surrounded by members of the National Guard.  I called to her, and she turned round.  “Would you have her go with you?” said my guardian to me.  I told him I did wish it.  They called the people who were leading my sister to prison; she joined me.

Madame de la Roche-Aymon and her daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline de Tourzel, Madame de Ginestoux, lady to the Princesse de Lamballe, the other women of the Queen, and the old Comte d’Affry, were led off together to the Abbaye.

Our progress from the Tuileries to my sister’s house was most distressing.  We saw several Swiss pursued and killed, and musket-shots were crossing each other in all directions.  We passed under the walls of the Louvre; they were firing from the parapet into the windows of the gallery, to hit the knights of the dagger; for thus did the populace designate those faithful subjects who had assembled at the Tuileries to defend the King.