CHAPTER IX.

The Queen having been robbed of her purse as she was passing from the Tuileries to the Feuillans, requested my sister to lend her twenty-five louis.

[On being interrogated the Queen declared that these five and twenty louis had been lent to her by my sister; this formed a pretence for arresting her and me, and led to her death.—­Madame Campan.]

I spent part of the day at the Feuillans, and her Majesty told me she would ask Potion to let me be with her in the place which the Assembly should decree for her prison.  I then returned home to prepare everything that might be necessary for me to accompany her.

On the same day (11th August), at nine in the evening, I returned to the Feuillans.  I found there were orders at all the gates forbidding my being admitted.  I claimed a right to enter by virtue of the first permission which had been given to me; I was again refused.  I was told that the Queen had as many people as were requisite about her.  My sister was with her, as well as one of my companions, who came out of the prisons of the Abbaye on the 11th.  I renewed my solicitations on the 12th; my tears and entreaties moved neither the keepers of the gates, nor even a deputy, to whom I addressed myself.

I soon heard of the removal of Louis XVI. and his family to the Temple.  I went to Potion accompanied by M. Valadon, for whom I had procured a place in the post-office, and who was devoted to me.  He determined to go up to Potion alone; he told him that those who requested to be confined could not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could afford a ground of objection to these solicitations.  Seeing that the well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.  Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay with them long.  And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen’s first woman, the first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force.  After the departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four hours.

From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.