ue, and told me quite simply that he had stolen watches and other
things. Luckily he saw nothing about me to tempt him, for I was only
taking a small amount of clothing and eighty louis for my journey. I
had left my principal effects and my jewels in Paris, and the fruit of
my labours was in the hands of my husband, who spent it all. I lived
abroad solely on the proceeds of my painting.

Not satisfied with relating his fine exploits to us, the thief talked
incessantly of stringing up such and such people on lamp-posts, naming
a number of my own acquaintances. My daughter thought this man very
wicked. He frightened her, and this gave me the courage to say, "I beg
you, sir, not to talk of killing before this child." That silenced
him, and he ended by playing at battle with my daughter. On the bench
I occupied there also sat a mad Jacobin from Grenoble, about fifty
years old, with an ugly, bilious complexion, who each time we stopped
at an inn for dinner or supper made violent speeches of the most
fearful kind. At all of the towns a crowd of people stopped the coach
to learn the news from Paris. Our Jacobin would then exclaim:
"Everything is going well, children! We have the baker and his wife
safe in Paris. A constitution will be drawn up, they will be forced to
accept it, and then it will be all over." There were plenty of ninnies
and flatheads who believed this man as if he had been an oracle. All
this made my journey a very melancholy one. I had no further fears for
myself, but I feared greatly for everybody else--for my mother, for my
brother, and for my friends. I also had the gravest apprehensions
concerning Their Majesties, for all along the route, nearly as far as
Lyons, men on horseback rode up to the coach to tell us that the King
and Queen had been killed and that Paris was on fire. My poor little
girl got all a-tremble; she thought she saw her father dead and our
house burned down, and no sooner had I succeeded in reassuring her
than another horseman appeared and told us the same stories.

I cannot describe the emotions I felt in passing over the Beauvoisin
Bridge. Then only did I breathe freely. I had left France behind, that
France which nevertheless was the land of my birth, and which I
reproached myself with quitting with so much satisfaction. The sight
of the mountains, however, distracted me from all my sad thoughts. I
had never seen high mountains before; those of the Savoy seemed to
touch the sky, and