Nicolas at last came up with a message from Madame la Baronne to beg that we would come down.  We found that the Intendante Corquelebois (erst Gringrimeau) had brought the children in a panic, lest the houses of the partisans of the Princes should be attacked.  She had put on a cloak and hood, made them look as like children of the people as she could, and brought them on foot through the streets; and there stood the poor little things, trembling and crying, and very glad to find their mother and cling to her.  She had never thought of this danger, and was shocked at herself for deserting them.  And it was a vain alarm; for, as M. Darpent assured her, M. d’Aubepine was not conspicuous enough to have become a mark for public hatred.

She was a little affronted by the assurance, but we appeased her, and as the tumult was beginning to die away, M. Darpent took his leave, promising my mother to let her know of any measure taken on the morrow.  He offered to protect Madame d’Aubepine and her children back to their own hotel, but we could not let the poor wife go back with her grief, nor the children turn out again on the winter’s night.  I was glad to see that she seemed now on perfectly good terms with herdame de compagnie, who showed herself really solicitous for her and her comfort, and did not seem displeased when I took her to my room.  I found my poor little sister-in-law on the whole less unhappy than formerly.  People do get accustomed to everything, and she had somehow come to believe that it was the proper and fashionable arrangement, and made her husband more distinguished, that he should imitate his Prince by living apart from her, and only occasionally issuing his commands to her.  He had not treated her of late with open contempt, and he had once or twice take a little notice of his son, and all this encouraged her in her firm and quiet trust that in process of time, trouble, age, or illness would bring him back to her.  Her eyes began to brighten as she wondered whether she could not obtain his liberty by falling at the Queen’s feet with a petition, leading her children in her hands.  ’They were so beautiful.  The Queen must grant anything on the sight of her little chevalier!’

And then she had a thousand motherly anecdotes of the children’s sweetness and cleverness to regale me with till she had talked herself tolerably happily to sleep.

We kept her with us, as there were reports the next day of arrests among the ladies of the Princes’ party.  The two Princesses of Conde were permitted to retire to Chantilly, but then the Dowager-Princess was known to be loyal, and the younger one was supposed to be a nonentity.  Madame de Longueville was summoned to the Palace, but she chose instead to hide herself in a little house in the Faubourg St. Germain, whence she escaped to Normandy, her husband’s Government, hoping to raise the people there to demand his release and that of her brothers.