ONE of the Royal palaces was La Muette, and it was on one of the journeys there that the Queen took it into her head to see the sun rise. It appeared a harmless fancy enough, and she suggested it to the King.With anguish she saw one cartload of prisoners leave, and she trembled every moment lest she should hear the sound of the wheels of a second in the courtyard of the prison.
FORE:I have received some news which fills me with joy; I hear the King has escaped from France, and I have just written to him, only addressingTo His Majesty the King of France. They will know very well where to find him, she added smiling.
I call God to witness, mother, that I did not order this dreadful crime!A discussion was going on about the great difficulty of proving a descent sufficiently pure to gain admittance into the order of the Knights of Malta.Mons was full of soldiers, they could only get bad rooms in the inn, and in the night Mademoiselle dOrlans, who slept in Mme. de Genliss room, did nothing but cough and moan. Going into the adjoining room to tell her niece, Mme. de Genlis found her in the same state; the girls had both got measles.Horror-stricken and frightened they hurried from the cottage, but the prophecies were all fulfilled. Marie Antoinette rejoiced at their parting as they were going to safety. The three rivers were apparently the Seine, Rhine, and Danube which Mme. de Polignac crossed on her way to Vienna. As to Mlle. Robert, she paid with her life for her faithful affection for her mistress. Insisting on remaining in Paris to look after her interests she was arrested on the 10th of August and perished in the September massacres.Hearing that the peasants, still attached to them, and untouched by revolutionary ideas, were about to receive them in the old way, with cross and banner and the ringing of the bells, they thought it better to arrive in the middle of the night, but the first thing in the morning the chateau was surrounded by the people, who were eager to see them.