t no particular promises. I have sufficient proofs of your
adherence to truth. Only answer me simply in the affirmative."

I said I would certainly obey her injunctions most religiously.

She then left me, and directed that I should walk in a particular part of
the private alleys of the Tuileries, between three and four o'clock in
the afternoon. I did so; and from her own hand I there received her
private Journal.

In the following September of this same year (1792) she was murdered!

Journalising copiously, for the purpose of amassing authentic materials
for the future historian, was always a favourite practice of the French,
and seems to have been particularly in vogue in the age I mention. The
press has sent forth whole libraries of these records since the
Revolution, and it is notorious that Louis XV. left Secret Memoirs,
written by his own hand, of what passed before this convulsion; and had
not the papers of the Tuileries shared in the wreck of royalty, it would
have been seen that Louis XVI. had made some progress in the memoirs of
his time; and even his beautiful and unfortunate Queen had herself made
extensive notes and collections for the record of her own disastrous
career. Hence it must be obvious how one so nearly connected in
situation and suffering with her much-injured mistress, as the Princesse
de Lamballe, would naturally fall into a similar habit had she even no
stronger temptation than fashion and example. But self-communion, by
means of the pen, is invariably the consolation of strong feeling, and
reflecting minds under great calamities, especially when their
intercourse with the world has been checked or poisoned by its malice.

The editor of these pages herself fell into the habit of which she
speaks; and it being usual with her benefactress to converse with all the
unreserve which every honest mind shows when it feels it can confide, her
humble attendant, not to lose facts of such importance, commonly made
notes of what she heard. In any other person's hands the Journal of the
Princess would have been incomplete; especially as it was written in a
rambling manner, and was never intended for publication. But connected
by her confidential conversations with me, and the recital of the events
to which I personally bear testimony, I trust it will be found the basis
of a satisfactory record, which I pledge myself to be a true one.

I do not know, however, that, at my time of life, and after a lapse