that M. de Laporte had not been able to devise any more secret way of destroying the work than that of having it burnt at Sevres, among two hundred workmen, one hundred and eighty of whom must, in all probability, be Jacobins!  She told me she had concealed her vexation from the King; that he was in consternation, and that she could say nothing, since his good intentions and his affection for her had been the cause of the mistake.

[M. de Laporte had by order of the King bought up the whole edition of the “Memoirs” of the notorious Madame de Lamotte against the Queen.  Instead of destroying them immediately, he shut them up in one of the closets in his house, The alarming and rapid growth of the rebellion, the arrogance of the crowd of brigands, who in great measure composed the populace of Paris, and the fresh excesses daily resulting from it, rendered the intendant of the civil list apprehensive that some mob might break into his house, carry off these “Memoirs,” and spread them among the public.  In order to prevent this he gave orders to have the “Memoirs” burnt with every necessary precaution; and the clerk who received the order entrusted the execution of it to a man named Riston, a dangerous Intriguer, formerly an advocate of Nancy, who had a twelve-month before escaped the gallows by favour of the new principles and the patriotism of the new tribunals, although convicted of forging the great seal, and fabricating decrees of the council.  This Riston, finding himself entrusted with a commission which concerned her Majesty, and the mystery attending which bespoke something of importance, was less anxious to execute it faithfully than to make a parade of this mark of confidence.  On the 30th of May, at ten in the morning, he had the sheets carried to the porcelain manufactory at Sevres, in a cart which he himself accompanied, and made a large fire of them before all the workmen, who were expressly forbidden to approach it.  All these precautions, and the suspicions to which they gave rise, under such critical circumstances, gave so much publicity to this affair that it was denounced to the Assembly that very night.  Brissot, and the whole Jacobin party, with equal effrontery and vehemence, insisted that the papers thus secretly burnt could be no other than the registers and documents of the correspondence of the Austrian committee.  M. de Laporte was ordered to the bar, and there gave the most precise account of the circumstances.  Riston was also called up, and confirmed M. de Laporte’s deposition.  But these explanations, however satisfactory, did not calm the violent ferment raised in the Assembly by this affair.—­“Memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville.”]

Some time afterwards the Assembly received a denunciation against M. de Montmorin.  The ex-minister was accused of having neglected forty despatches from M. Genet, the charge d’affaires from France in Russia, not having even unsealed them, because M. Genet acted on constitutional principles.  M. de Montmorin appeared at the bar to answer this accusation.  Whatever distress I might feel in obeying the order I had received from the King to go and give him an account of the sitting, I thought I ought not to fail in doing so.  But instead of giving my brother his family name, I merely said “your Majesty’s charge d’affaires at St. Petersburg.”