he second of October. Though none of the Royal Family appeared
at it, it was no less injurious to their interests than the former. The
enemies of the Crown spread reports all over Paris, that the King and
Queen had manoeuvred to pervert the minds of the troops so far as to make
them declare against the measures of the National Assembly. It is not
likely that the Assembly, or politics, were even spoken of at the
breakfast; but the report did as much mischief as the reality would have
done. This was quite sufficient to encourage the D'ORLEANS and Mirabeau
faction in the Assembly to the immediate execution of their
long-meditated scheme, of overthrowing the monarchy.

"On the very day following, Duport, De Lameth, and Barnave sent their
confidential agent to apprise the Queen that certain deputies had already
fully matured a plot to remove the King, nay, to confine Her Majesty from
him in a distant part of France, that her influence over his mind might
no farther thwart their premeditated establishment of a Constitution.

"But others of this body, and the more powerful and subtle portion, had a
deeper object, so depraved, that, even when forewarned, the Queen could
not deem it possible; but of which she was soon convinced by their
infernal acts.

"The riotous faction, for the purpose of accelerating this denouement,
had contrived, by buying up all the corn and sending it out of the
country, to reduce the populace to famine, and then to make it appear
that the King and Queen had been the monopolisers, and the extravagance
of Marie Antoinette and her largesses to Austria and her favourites, the
cause. The plot was so deeply laid that the wretches who, undertook to
effect the diabolical scheme were metamorphosed in the Queen's livery, so
that all the odium might fall on her unfortunate Majesty. At the head of
the commission of monopolisers was Luckner, who had taken a violent
dislike to the Queen, in consequence of his having been refused some
preferment, which he attributed to her influence. Mirabeau, who was
still in the background, and longing to take a more prominent part,
helped it on as much as possible. Pinet, who had been a confidential
agent of the Duc d'Orleans, himself told the Duc de Penthievre that
D'ORLEANS had monopolised all the corn. This communication, and the
activity of the Count Fersen, saved France, and Paris in particular, from
perishing for the want of bread. Even at the moment of the abominable
masq