n promised to remain, for he is an honest man.... He
sees that force is the only resource; but, being weak, he thinks it
impossible to resume all his authority.... Unless he were constantly
encouraged, I am not sure he would not be tempted to negotiate with the
rebels. He said to me afterwards: 'That's all very well! We are by
ourselves and we can talk; but nobody ever found himself in my
position. I know I missed the right moment; it was the 14th of July;
we ought to have gone then, and I wanted to, but how could I when
Monsieur himself begged me to stay, and Marshal de Broglie, who was in
command, said to me: "Yes, we can go to Metz. But what shall we do
when we get there?" I lost the opportunity and never found it again.
I have been abandoned by everybody.'" Louis XVI. desired Fersen to
warn the Powers that they must not be surprised at anything he might be
forced to do; that he was {20} obliged, that it was the effect of
constraint. "They must put me out of the question," he added, "and let
me do what I can."

Fersen had a long talk with Marie Antoinette the same day. She entered
into full details about the present and especially about the past. She
explained why the flight to Varennes, in which Fersen had taken such a
prominent part, and which had succeeded so well so long as he directed
it, had ended in failure. The Queen described the anguish of the
arrest and the return. To the project of a new effort to escape, she
replied by pointing out the implacable surveillance of which she was
the object, and the effervescence of popular passions, which this time
would overleap all restraint if the fugitives were taken. It would be
better for the royal family to suffer together than to expose
themselves to die separately. It would be better to die like princes,
who abdicate majesty only with life, than as vagabonds, under a vulgar
disguise. "The Queen," adds Fersen, "told me that she saw Alexander
Lameth and Duport; that they always tell her that there is no remedy
but foreign troops; failing that, all is lost, that this cannot last,
that they have gone farther than they wished to. In spite of all this,
she thinks them malicious, does not trust them, but uses them as best
she can. All the ministers are traitors who betray the King." Fersen
had a final interview with Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette on February
21, 1792. By February 24, {21} he had returned to Brussels. He was
profoundly moved on quitti