The two Guards came at the appointed hour, and accepted, I think, each one or two hundred louis.  A moment afterwards the Queen opened my door; she was accompanied by the King and Madame Elisabeth; the King stood with his back against the fireplace; the Queen sat down upon a sofa and Madame Elisabeth sat near her; I placed myself behind the Queen, and the two Guards stood facing the King.  The Queen told them that the King wished to see before they went away two of the brave men who had afforded him the strongest proofs of courage and attachment.  Miomandre said all that the Queen’s affecting observations were calculated to inspire.  Madame Elisabeth spoke of the King’s gratitude; the Queen resumed the subject of their speedy departure, urging the necessity of it; the King was silent; but his emotion was evident, and his eyes were suffused with tears.  The Queen rose, the King went out, and Madame Elisabeth followed him; the Queen stopped and said to me, in the recess of a window, “I am sorry I brought the King here!  I am sure Elisabeth thinks with me; if the King had but given utterance to a fourth part of what he thinks of those brave men they would have been in ecstacies; but he cannot overcome his diffidence.”

The Emperor Joseph died about this time.  The Queen’s grief was not excessive; that brother of whom she had been so proud, and whom she had loved so tenderly, had probably suffered greatly in her opinion; she reproached him sometimes, though with moderation, for having adopted several of the principles of the new philosophy, and perhaps she knew that he looked upon our troubles with the eye of the sovereign of Germany rather than that of the brother of the Queen of France.

The Emperor on one occasion sent the Queen an engraving which represented unfrocked nuns and monks.  The first were trying on fashionable dresses, the latter were having their hair arranged; the picture was always left in the closet, and never hung up.  The Queen told me to have it taken away; for she was hurt to see how much influence the philosophers had over her brother’s mind and actions.

Mirabeau had not lost the hope of becoming the last resource of the oppressed Court; and at this time some communications passed between the Queen and him.  The question was about an office to be conferred upon him.  This transpired, and it must have been about this period that the Assembly decreed that no deputy could hold an office as a minister of the King until the expiration of two years after the cessation of his legislative functions.  I know that the Queen was much hurt at this decision, and considered that the Court had lost a promising opening.

The palace of the Tuileries was a very disagreeable residence during the summer, which made the Queen wish to go to St. Cloud.  The removal was decided on without any opposition; the National Guard of Paris followed the Court thither.  At this period new opportunities of escape were presented; nothing would have been more easy than to execute them.  The King had obtained leave (!) to go out without guards, and to be accompanied only by an aide-de-camp of M. de La Fayette.  The Queen also had one on duty with her, and so had the Dauphin.  The King and Queen often went out at four in the afternoon, and did not return until eight or nine.