The Queen’s accouchement approached; Te Deums were sung and prayers offered up in all the cathedrals.  On the 11th of December, 1778, the royal family, the Princes of the blood, and the great officers of State passed the night in the rooms adjoining the Queen’s bedchamber.  Madame, the King’s daughter, came into the world before mid-day on the 19th of December.—­[Marie Therese Charlotte (1778-1861), Madame Royale; married in 1799 Louis, Duc d’Angouleme, eldest son of the Comte d’Artois.]—­The etiquette of allowing all persons indiscriminately to enter at the moment of the delivery of a queen was observed with such exaggeration that when the accoucheur said aloud, “La Reine va s’accoucher,” the persons who poured into the chamber were so numerous that the rush nearly destroyed the Queen.  During the night the King had taken the precaution to have the enormous tapestry screens which surrounded her Majesty’s bed secured with cords; but for this they certainly would have been thrown down upon her.  It was impossible to move about the chamber, which was filled with so motley a crowd that one might have fancied himself in some place of public amusement.  Two Savoyards got upon the furniture for a better sight of the Queen, who was placed opposite the fireplace.

The noise and the sex of the infant, with which the Queen was made acquainted by a signal previously agreed on, as it is said, with the Princesse do Lamballe, or some error of the accoucheur, brought on symptoms which threatened fatal consequences; the accoucheur exclaimed, “Give her air—­warm water—­she must be bled in the foot!” The windows were stopped up; the King opened them with a strength which his affection for the Queen gave him at the moment.  They were of great height, and pasted over with strips of paper all round.  The basin of hot water not being brought quickly enough, the accoucheur desired the chief surgeon to use his lancet without waiting for it.  He did so; the blood streamed out freely, and the Queen opened her eyes.  The Princesse de Lamballe was carried through the crowd in a state of insensibility.  The valets de chambre and pages dragged out by the collar such inconsiderate persons as would not leave the room.  This cruel custom was abolished afterwards.  The Princes of the family, the Princes of the blood, the chancellor, and the ministers are surely sufficient to attest the legitimacy of an hereditary prince.  The Queen was snatched from the very jaws of death; she was not conscious of having been bled, and on being replaced in bed asked why she had a linen bandage upon her foot.

The delight which succeeded the moment of fear was equally lively and sincere.  We were all embracing each other, and shedding tears of joy.  The Comte d’Esterhazy and the Prince de Poix, to whom I was the first to announce that the Queen was restored to life, embraced me in the midst of the cabinet of nobles.  We little imagined, in our happiness at her escape from death, for how much more terrible a fate our beloved Princess was reserved.