Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 6: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the QueenCampan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
History
Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Volume 6: Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan, First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
Campan, Mme. (Jeanne-Louise-Henriette)
France -- Court and courtiers; Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of Louis XVI, King of France, 1755-1793
I passed over several corpses; I recognised that of the old Vicomte de
Broves, to whom the Queen had sent me at the beginning of the night to
desire him and another old man in her name to go home. These brave men
desired I would tell her Majesty that they had but too strictly obeyed the
King's orders in all circumstances under which they ought to have exposed
their own lives in order to preserve his; and that for this once they
would not obey, though they would cherish the recollection of the Queen's
goodness.
Near the grille, on the side next the bridge, the men who conducted me
asked whither I wished to go. Upon my inquiring, in my turn, whether they
were at liberty to take me wherever I might wish to go, one of them, a
Marseillais, asked me, giving me at the same time a push with the butt end
of his musket, whether I still doubted the power of the people? I
answered "No," and I mentioned the number of my brother-in-law's house. I
saw my sister ascending the steps of the parapet of the bridge, surrounded
by members of the National Guard. I called to her, and she turned round.
"Would you have her go with you?" said my guardian to me. I told him I did
wish it. They called the people who were leading my sister to prison; she
joined me.
Madame de la Roche-Aymon and her daughter, Mademoiselle Pauline de
Tourzel, Madame de Ginestoux, lady to the Princesse de Lamballe, the other
women of the Queen, and the old Comte d'Affry, were led off together to
the Abbaye.
Our progress from the Tuileries to my sister's house was most distressing.
We saw several Swiss pursued and killed, and musket-shots were crossing
each other in all directions. We passed under the walls of the Louvre;
they were firing from the parapet into the windows of the gallery, to hit
the knights of the dagger; for thus did the populace designate those
faithful subjects who had assembled at the Tuileries to defend the King.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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