In the midst of all these distracting doubts, however, the departure was resolved upon.  Mirabeau had many interviews with the Count Fersen upon the subject.  It was his great object to prevent the flight from being encumbered.  But the King would not be persuaded to separate himself from the Queen and the rest of the family, and entrusted the project to too many advisers.  Had he been guided by Fersen only, he would have succeeded.

The natural consequence of a secret being in so many hands was felt in the result.  Those whom it was most important to keep in ignorance were the first on the alert.  The weakness of the Queen in insisting upon taking a remarkable dressing-case with her, and, to get it away unobserved, ordering a facsimile to be made under the pretext of intending it as a present to her sister at Brussels, awakened the suspicion of a favourite, but false female attendant, then intriguing with the aide-de-camp of La Fayette.  The rest is easily to be conceived.  The Assembly were apprised of all the preparations for the departure a week or more before it occurred.  La Fayette, himself, it is believed, knew and encouraged it, that he might have the glory of stopping the fugitive himself; but he was overruled by the Assembly.

When the secretary of the Austrian Ambassador came publicly, by arrangement, to ask permission of the Queen to take the model of the dressing-case in question, the very woman to whom I have alluded was in attendance at Her Majesty’s toilet.  The paramour of the woman was with her, watching the motions of the Royal Family on the night they passed from their own apartments to those of the Duc de Villequier in order to get into the carriage; and by this paramour was La Fayette instantly informed of the departure.  The traitress discovered that Her Majesty was on the eve of setting off by seeing her diamonds packed up.  All these things were fully known to the Assembly, of which the Queen herself was afterwards apprised by the Mayor of Paris.

In the suite of the Count Fersen

[Alvise de Pisani, the last venetian Ambassador to the King, who was my husband’s particular friend, and with whom I was myself long acquainted, and have been ever since to this day, as well as with all his noble family, during my many years’ residence at Venice, told me this circumstance while walking with him at his country-seat at Stra, which was subsequently taken from him by Napoleon, and made the Imperial palace of the viceroy, and is now that of the German reigning Prince.]

there was a young Swede who had an intrigue purposely with one of the Queen’s women, from whom he obtained many important disclosures relative to the times.  The Swede mentioned this to his patron, who advised Her Majesty to discharge a certain number of these women, among whom was the one who afterwards proved her betrayer.  It was suggested to dismiss a number at once, that the guilty person might not