ly beyond description. Almost unendurable as they had been
before, they were aggravated by the insults of the national guard to
every passenger to and from the palace. I was myself in so much peril,
that the Princess thought it necessary to procure a trusty person, of
tried courage, to see me through the throngs, with a large bandbox of all
sorts of fashionable millinery, as the mode of ingress and egress least
liable to excite suspicion.

Thus equipped, and guarded by my cicisbeo, I one day found myself, on
entering the Tuileries, in the midst of an immense mob of regular trained
rioters, who, seeing me go towards the palace, directed their attention
entirely to me. They took me for some one belonging to the Queen's
milliner, Madame Bertin, who, they said, was fattening upon the public
misery, through the Queen's extravagance. The poor Queen herself they
called by names so opprobious that decency will not suffer me to repeat
them.

With a volley of oaths, pressing upon us, they bore us to another part of
the garden, for the purpose of compelling us to behold six or eight of
the most infamous outcasts, amusing themselves, in a state of exposure,
with their accursed hands and arms tinged with blood up to the elbows.
The spot they had chosen for this exhibition of their filthy persons was
immediately before the windows of the apartments of the Queen and the
ladies of the Court. Here they paraded up and down, to the great
entertainment of a throng of savage rebels, by whom they were applauded
and encouraged with shouts of "Bis! bis!" signifying in English," Again!
again!"

The demoniac interest excited by this scene withdrew the attention of
those who were enjoying it from me, and gave me the opportunity of
escaping unperceived, merely with the loss of my bandbox. Of that the
infuriated mob made themselves masters; and the hats, caps, bonnets, and
other articles of female attire, were placed on the parts of their
degraded carcases, which, for the honour of human nature, should have
been shot.

Overcome with agony at these insults, I burst from the garden in a flood
of tears. On passing the gate, I was accosted by a person who exclaimed
in a tone of great kindness, "Qu'as tu, ma bonne? qu'est ce qui vous
afflige?" Knowing the risk I should run in representing the real cause
of my concern, I immediately thought of ascribing it to the loss of the
property of which I had been plundered. I told him I was a poor
milliner, a