M. Campan having been unable to benefit by the waters of Mont d’Or, and the first popular effervescence having subsided, I thought I might return to Clermont.  The committee of surveillance, or that of general safety, had resolved to arrest me there; but the Abbe Louis, formerly a parliamentary counsellor, and then a member of the Constituent Assembly, was kind enough to affirm that I was in Auvergne solely for the purpose of attending my father-in-law, who was extremely ill.  The precautions relative to my absence from Paris were limited to placing us under the surveillance of the ‘procureur’ of the commune, who was at the same time president of the Jacobin club; but he was also a physician of repute, and without having any doubt that he had received secret orders relative to me, I thought it would favour the chances of our safety if I selected him to attend my patient.  I paid him according to the rate given to the best Paris physicians, and I requested him to visit us every morning and every evening.  I took the precaution to subscribe to no other newspaper than the Moniteur.  Doctor Monestier (for that was the physician’s name) frequently took upon himself to read it to us.  Whenever he thought proper to speak of the King and Queen in the insulting and brutal terms at that time unfortunately adopted throughout France, I used to stop him and say, coolly, “Monsieur, you are here in company with the servants of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.  Whatever may be the wrongs with which the nation believes it has to reproach them, our principles forbid our losing sight of the respect due to them from us.”  Notwithstanding that he was an inveterate patriot, he felt the force of this remark, and even procured the revocation of a second order for our arrest, becoming responsible for us to the committee of the Assembly, and to the Jacobin society.

The two chief women about the Dauphin, who had accompanied the Queen to Varennes, Diet, her usher, and Camot, her garcon de toilette,—­the women on account of the journey, and the men in consequence of the denunciation of the woman belonging to the wardrobe,—­were sent to the prisons of the Abbaye.  After my departure the garcon de toilette whom I had taken to Madame Vallayer Coster’s was sent there with the portfolio she had agreed to receive.  This commission could not escape the detestable spy upon the Queen.  She gave information that a portfolio had been carried out on the evening of the departure, adding that the King had placed it upon the Queen’s easy-chair, that the garcon de toilette wrapped it up in a napkin and took it under his arm, and that she did not know where he had carried it.  The man, who was remarkable for his fidelity, underwent three examinations without making the slightest disclosure.  M. Diet, a man of good family, a servant on whom the Queen placed particular reliance, likewise experienced the severest treatment.  At length, after a lapse of three weeks, the Queen succeeded in obtaining the release of her servants.