The brigands broke some vessels of water in the Queen’s first antechamber; the mixture of blood and water stained the skirts of our white gowns.  The poissardes screamed after us in the streets that we were attached to the Austrian.  Our protectors then showed some consideration for us, and made us go up a gateway to pull off our gowns; but our petticoats being too short, and making us look like persons in disguise, other poissardes began to bawl out that we were young Swiss dressed up like women.  We then saw a tribe of female cannibals enter the street, carrying the head of poor Mandat.  Our guards made us hastily enter a little public-house, called for wine, and desired us to drink with them.  They assured the landlady that we were their sisters, and good patriots.  Happily the Marseillais had quitted us to return to the Tuileries.  One of the men who remained with us said to me in a low voice:  “I am a gauze-worker in the faubourg.  I was forced to march; I am not for all this; I have not killed anybody, and have rescued you.  You ran a great risk when we met the mad women who are carrying Mandat’s head.  These horrible women said yesterday at midnight, upon the site of the Bastille, that they must have their revenge for the 6th of October, at Versailles, and that they had sworn to kill the Queen and all the women attached to her; the danger of the action saved you all.”

As I crossed the Carrousel, I saw my house in flames; but as soon as the first moment of affright was over, I thought no more of my personal misfortunes.  My ideas turned solely upon the dreadful situation of the Queen.

On reaching my sister’s we found all our family in despair, believing they should never see us again.  I could not remain in her house; some of the mob, collected round the door, exclaimed that Marie Antoinette’s confidante was in the house, and that they must have her head.  I disguised myself, and was concealed in the house of M. Morel, secretary for the lotteries.  On the morrow I was inquired for there, in the name of the Queen.  A deputy, whose sentiments were known to her, took upon himself to find me out.

I borrowed clothes, and went with my sister to the Feuillans—­[A former monastery near the Tuileries, so called from the Bernardines, one of the Cistercian orders; later a revolutionary club.]—­We got there at the same time with M. Thierry de Ville d’Avray, the King’s first valet de chambre.  We were taken into an office, where we wrote down our names and places of abode, and we received tickets for admission into the rooms belonging to Camus, the keeper of the Archives, where the King was with his family.

As we entered the first room, a person who was there said to me, “Ah! you are a brave woman; but where is that Thierry,

[M.  Thierry, who never ceased to give his sovereign proofs of unalterable attachment, was one of the victims of the 2d of September.—­Madame Campan.]