d
not be suspected of evil designs, and that no political opinion could
afford a ground of objection to these solicitations. Seeing that the
well-meaning man did not succeed, I thought to do more in person; but
Petion persisted in his refusal, and threatened to send me to La Force.
Thinking to give me a kind of consolation, he added I might be certain
that all those who were then with Louis XVI. and his family would not stay
with them long. And in fact, two or three days afterwards the Princesse
de Lamballe, Madame de Tourzel, her daughter, the Queen's first woman, the
first woman of the Dauphin and of Madame, M. de Chamilly, and M. de Hue
were carried off during the night and transferred to La Force. After the
departure of the King and Queen for the Temple, my sister was detained a
prisoner in the apartments their Majesties had quitted for twenty-four
hours.
From this time I was reduced to the misery of having no further
intelligence of my august and unfortunate mistress but through the medium
of the newspapers or the National Guard, who did duty at the Temple.
The King and Queen said nothing to me at the Feuillans about the portfolio
which had been deposited with me; no doubt they expected to see me again.
The minister Roland and the deputies composing the provisional government
were very intent on a search for papers belonging to their Majesties.
They had the whole of the Tuileries ransacked. The infamous Robespierre
bethought himself of M. Campan, the Queen's private secretary, and said
that his death was feigned; that he was living unknown in some obscure
part of France, and was doubtless the depositary of all the important
papers. In a great portfolio belonging to the King there had been found a
solitary letter from the Comte d'Artois, which, by its date, and the
subjects of which it treated, indicated the existence of a continued
correspondence. (This letter appeared among the documents used on the
trial of Louis XVI.) A former preceptor of my son's had studied with
Robespierre; the latter, meeting him in the street, and knowing the
connection which had subsisted between him and the family of M. Campan,
required him to say, upon his honour, whether he was certain of the death
of the latter. The man replied that M. Campan had died at La Briche in
1791, and that he had seen him interred in the cemetery of Epinay. "well,
then," resumed Robespierre, "bring me the certificate of his burial at
twelve to-morr
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