o 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