apprehension that an improper use might be made of those
signatures. She desired me to demand admission to the committee of
general safety, and to make this declaration there. I repaired thither
instantly and found a deputy, with whose name I have never become
acquainted. After hearing me he said that he would not receive my
deposition; that Marie Antoinette was now nothing more than any other
Frenchwoman; and that if any of those detached papers bearing her
signature should be misapplied, she would have, at a future period, a
right to lodge a complaint, and to support her declaration by the facts
which I had just related. The Queen then regretted having sent me, and
feared that she had, by her very caution, pointed out a method of
fabricating forgeries which might be dangerous to her; then again she
exclaimed, "My apprehensions are as absurd as the step I made you take.
They need nothing more for our ruin; all has been told."

She gave us details of what had taken place subsequently to the King's
arrival at the Assembly. They are all well known, and I have no occasion
to record them; I will merely mention that she told us, though with much
delicacy, that she was not a little hurt at the King's conduct since he
had quitted the Tuileries; that his habit of laying no restraint upon his
great appetite had prompted him to eat as if he had been at his palace;
that those who did not know him as she did, did not feel the piety and the
magnanimity of his resignation, all which produced so bad an effect that
deputies who were devoted to him had warned him of it; but no change could
be effected.

I still see in imagination, and shall always see, that narrow cell at the
Feuillans, hung with green paper, that wretched couch whence the
dethroned, Queen stretched out her arms to us, saying that our
misfortunes, of which she was the cause, increased her own. There, for
the last time, I saw the tears, I heard the sobs of her whom high birth,
natural endowments, and, above all, goodness of heart, had seemed to
destine to adorn any throne, and be the happiness of any people! It is
impossible for those who lived with Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette not to
be fully convinced, while doing full justice to the King's virtues, that
if the Queen had been from the moment of her arrival in France the object
of the care and affection of a prince of decision and authority, she would
have only added to the glory of his reign.

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