The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again.  The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties.  They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked.  The infamous Robespierre bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen’s private secretary, and said that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important papers.  In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a solitary letter from the Comte d’Artois, which, by its date, and the subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son’s had studied with Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan, required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death of the latter.  The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in 1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. “well, then,” resumed Robespierre, “bring me the certificate of his burial at twelve to-morrow; it is a document for which I have pressing occasion.”  Upon hearing the deputy’s demand I instantly sent for a certificate of M. Campan’s burial, and Robespierre received it at nine o’clock the next morning.  But I considered that, in thinking of my father-in-law, they were coming very near me, the real depositary of these important papers.  I passed days and nights in considering what I could do for the best under such circumstances.

I was thus situated when the order to inform against those who had been denounced as suspected on the 10th of August led to domiciliary visits.  My servants were told that the people of the quarter in which I lived were talking much of the search that would be made in my house, and came to apprise me of it.  I heard that fifty armed men would make themselves masters of M. Auguies house, where I then was.  I had just received this intelligence when M. Gougenot, the King’s maitre d’hotel and receiver-general of the taxes, a man much attached to his sovereign, came into my room wrapped in a ridingcloak, under which, with great difficulty, he carried the King’s portfolio, which I had entrusted to him.  He threw it down at my feet, and said to me, “There is your deposit; I did not receive it from our unfortunate King’s own hands; in delivering it to you I have executed my trust.”  After saying this he was about to withdraw.  I stopped him, praying him to consult with me what I ought to do in such a trying emergency.  He would not listen to my entreaties, or even hear me describe the course I intended to pursue.  I told him my abode was about to be