for the Duchesse de Polignac, so far from having
caused the disgrace, she was not even aware of the circumstance from
which it arose; nor did the Minister himself ever know how, or by what
agency, his falsehood was so thoroughly unmasked."

NOTE:

[The work which is here spoken of, the Queen kept, as a proof of the
treachery of Calonne towards her and his Sovereign, till the storming of
the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792, when, with the rest of the
papers and property plundered on that memorable occasion, it fell into
the hands of the ferocious mob.

M. de Calonne soon after left France for Italy. There he lived for some
time in the palace of a particular friend of mine and the Marquis, my
husband, the Countess Francese Tressino, at Vicenza.

In consequence of our going every season to take the mineral waters and
use the baths at Valdagno, we had often occasion to be in company with M.
de Calonne, both at Vicenza and Valdagno, where I must do him the justice
to say he conducted himself with the greatest circumspection in speaking
of the Revolution.

Though he evidently avoided the topic which terminates this chapter, yet
one day, being closely pressed upon the subject, he said forgeries were
daily committed on Ministers, and were most particularly so in France at
the period in question; that he had borne the blame of various
imprudencies neither authorized nor executed by him; that much had been
done and supposed to have been done with his sanction, of which he had
not the slightest knowledge. This he observed generally, without
specifying any express instance.

He was then asked whether he did not consider himself responsible for the
mischief he occasioned by declaring the nation in a state of bankruptcy.
He said, "No, not in the least. There was no other way of preventing
enormous sums from being daily lavished, as they then were, on herds of
worthless beings; that the Queen had sought to cultivate a state of
private domestic society, but that, in the attempt, she only warmed in
her bosom domestic vipers, who fed on the vital spirit of her
generosity." He mentioned no names.

I then took the liberty of asking him his opinion of the Princesse de
Lamballe.

"Oh, madame! had the rest of Her Majesty's numerous attendants possessed
the tenth part of that unfortunate Victim's virtues, Her Majesty would
never have been led into the errors which all France must deplore!

"I shall never forget her," cont