The fear of another attack upon the Tuileries occasioned scrupulous search among the King’s papers

I burnt almost all those belonging to the Queen.  She put her family letters, a great deal of correspondence which she thought it necessary to preserve for the history of the era of the Revolution, and particularly Barnave’s letters and her answers, of which she had copies, into a portfolio, which she entrusted to M. de J——.  That gentleman was unable to save this deposit, and it was burnt.  The Queen left a few papers in her secretaire.  Among them were instructions to Madame de Tourzel, respecting the dispositions of her children and the characters and abilities of the sub-governesses under that lady’s orders.  This paper, which the Queen drew up at the time of Madame de Tourzel’s appointment, with several letters from Maria Theresa, filled with the best advice and instructions, was printed after the 10th of August by order of the Assembly in the collection of papers found in the secretaires of the King and Queen.

Her Majesty had still, without reckoning the income of the month, one hundred and forty thousand francs in gold.  She was desirous of depositing the whole of it with me; but I advised her to retain fifteen hundred louis, as a sum of rather considerable amount might be suddenly necessary for her.  The King had an immense quantity of papers, and unfortunately conceived the idea of privately making, with the assistance of a locksmith who had worked with him above ten years, a place of concealment in an inner corridor of his apartments.  The place of concealment, but for the man’s information, would have been long undiscovered?  The wall in which it was made was painted to imitate large stones, and the opening was entirely concealed among the brown grooves which formed the shaded part of these painted stones.  But even before this locksmith had denounced what was afterwards called the iron closet to the Assembly, the Queen was aware that he had talked of it to some of his friends; and that this man, in whom the King from long habit placed too much confidence, was a Jacobin.  She warned the King of it, and prevailed on him to fill a very large portfolio with all the papers he was most interested in preserving, and entrust it to me.  She entreated him in my presence to leave nothing in this closet; and the King, in order to quiet her, told her that he had left nothing there.  I would have taken the portfolio and carried it to my apartment, but it was too heavy for me to lift.  The King said he would carry it himself; I went before to open the doors for him.  When he placed the portfolio in my inner closet he merely said, “The Queen will tell you what it contains.”  Upon my return to the Queen I put the question to her, deeming, from what the King had said, that it was necessary I should know.  “They are,” the Queen answered me, “such documents as would be most dangerous to the King should they go so far as to proceed