unicated to the King, and still more fully to the Queen, part of his
schemes for abandoning them. He brandished the weapons afforded him by
his eloquence and audacity, in order to make terms with the party he meant
to attack. This man played the game of revolution to make his own
fortune. The Queen told me that he asked for an embassy, and, if my
memory does not deceive me, it was that of Constantinople. He was refused
with well-deserved contempt, though policy would doubtless have concealed
it, could the future have been foreseen.

The enthusiasm prevailing at the opening of this assembly, and the debates
between the Tiers Etat, the nobility, and even the clergy, daily increased
the alarm of their Majesties, and all who were attached to the cause of
monarchy. The Queen went to bed late, or rather she began to be unable to
rest. One evening, about the end of May, she was sitting in her room,
relating several remarkable occurrences of the day; four wax candles were
placed upon her toilet-table; the first went out of itself; I relighted
it; shortly afterwards the second, and then the third went out also; upon
which the Queen, squeezing my hand in terror, said to me: "Misfortune
makes us superstitious; if the fourth taper should go out like the rest,
nothing can prevent my looking upon it as a sinister omen." The fourth
taper went out. It was remarked to the Queen that the four tapers had
probably been run in the same mould, and that a defect in the wick had
naturally occurred at the same point in each, since the candles had all
gone out in the order in which they had been lighted.

The deputies of the Tiers Etat arrived at Versailles full of the strongest
prejudices against the Court. They believed that the King indulged in the
pleasures of the table to a shameful excess; and that the Queen was
draining the treasury of the State in order to satisfy the most unbridled
luxury. They almost all determined to see Petit Trianon. The extreme
plainness of the retreat in question not answering the ideas they had
formed, some of them insisted upon seeing the very smallest closets,
saying that the richly furnished apartments were concealed from them. They
particularised one which, according to them, was ornamented with diamonds,
and with wreathed columns studded with sapphires and rubies. The Queen
could not get these foolish ideas out of her mind, and spoke to the King
on the subject. From the description given of this r