When dinner was over I heard a knocking at the door of my apartment, which opened into the corridor next that of the Queen; it was herself.  She asked me whether there was anybody with me; I was alone; she threw herself into an armchair, and told me she came to weep with me over the foolish conduct of the ultras of the King’s party.  “We must fall,” said she, “attacked as we are by men who possess every talent and shrink from no crime, while we are defended only by those who are no doubt very estimable, but have no adequate idea of our situation.  They have exposed me to the animosity of both parties by presenting the widow and son of Favras to me.  Were I free to act as I wish, I should take the child of the man who has just sacrificed himself for us and place him at table between the King and myself; but surrounded by the assassins who have destroyed his father, I did not dare even to cast my eyes upon him.  The royalists will blame me for not having appeared interested in this poor child; the revolutionists will be enraged at the idea that his presentation should have been thought agreeable to me.”  However, the Queen added that she knew Madame de Favras was in want, and that she desired me to send her next day, through a person who could be relied on, a few rouleaus of fifty Louis, and to direct that she should be assured her Majesty would always watch over the fortunes of herself and her son.

In the month of March following I had an opportunity of ascertaining the King’s sentiments respecting the schemes which were continually proposed to him for making his escape.  One night about ten o’clock Comte d’Inisdal, who was deputed by the nobility, came to request that I would see him in private, as he had an important matter to communicate to me.  He told me that on that very night the King was to be carried off; that the section of the National Guard, that day commanded by M. d’Aumont, was gained over, and that sets of horses, furnished by some good royalists, were placed in relays at suitable distances; that he had just left a number of the nobility assembled for the execution of this scheme, and that he had been sent to me that I might, through the medium of the Queen, obtain the King’s positive consent to it before midnight; that the King was aware of their plan, but that his Majesty never would speak decidedly, and that it was necessary he should consent to the undertaking.  I greatly displeased Comte d’Inisdal by expressing my astonishment that the nobility at the moment of the execution of so important a project should send to me, the Queen’s first woman, to obtain a consent which ought to have been the basis of any well-concerted scheme.  I told him, also, that it would be impossible for me to go at that time to the Queen’s apartments without exciting the attention of the people in the antechambers; that the King was at cards with the Queen and his family, and that I never broke in upon their privacy unless I was called for.  I added, however, that M. Campan could enter without being called; and if the Count chose to give him his confidence he might rely upon him.