“The Jacobins raised on the 17th of July a considerable outbreak. The _brigands_ commenced by murdering two men. Martial law was proclaimed. It is difficult to form an idea of my mother’s mortal anguish while my father was in the Champ de Mars, exposed to the rage of an infuriated multitude, which dispersed crying out that my mother must be put to death and her head carried to meet him. I remember the fearful cries we heard, I remember the alarm of everybody in the house, and above all my mother’s joy at the thought that the _brigands_ who were coming to attack her were no longer surrounding my father in the Champ de Mars. While embracing us with tears of joy, she took every necessary precaution against the approaching danger with the greatest calmness, and above all with the greatest relief of mind. The guard had been doubled, and was drawn up before the house, but the _brigands_ were very near entering my mother’s apartment by the garden looking upon the Place du Palais-Bourbon, and were already climbing the low wall which protected us, when a body of cavalry passed on the Place and dispersed them. “The constitution having been accepted by the king, the Constituent Assembly ended its sittings, and was replaced by the Legislative Assembly. My father gave up the command of the National Guard, and set out for Auvergne with my mother in the beginning of October. The journey was long, for they were often obliged to stop in order to acknowledge the marks of sympathy they received on the way. We followed in another carriage, and my brother joined us shortly afterwards. “This interval of repose was of short duration. My father was appointed to the command of one of the three armies which were formed at that time. He left Chavaniac in December, 1791. This departure, the expectation of an approaching war, the dread of fresh disturbances, all contributed to renew my mother’s distress: those who might have shared her feelings had left her. My grandmother, and, soon after, my aunt de Noailles were obliged to return to Paris. She bade them a farewell which she was far from supposing was to be the last. “War was declared in the month of March, 1792. It began by several skirmishes with my father’s army, in one of which M. de Gouvion, who had been major-general of the National Guard, was killed. My mother was filled with terror and harassed by fearful forebodings. The disturbances at home added to her dismay.