monarchy without appreciating
its utility among a great people, I should at this moment be guilty of a
most ill-advised step; but in speaking to a Mirabeau," etc. The poor
Queen was delighted at having discovered this method of exalting him above
all others of his principles; and in imparting the particulars of this
interview to me she said, "Do you know that those words, 'a Mirabeau,'
appeared to flatter him exceedingly." On leaving the Queen he said to her
with warmth, "Madame, the monarchy is saved!" It must have been soon
afterwards that Mirabeau received considerable sums of money. He showed
it too plainly by the increase of his expenditure. Already did some of his
remarks upon the necessity of arresting the progress of the democrats
circulate in society. Being once invited to meet a person at dinner who
was very much attached to the Queen, he learned that that person withdrew
on hearing that he was one of the guests; the party who invited him told
him this with some degree of satisfaction; but all were very much
astonished when they heard Mirabeau eulogise the absent guest, and declare
that in his place he would have done the same; but, he added, they had
only to invite that person again in a few months, and he would then dine
with the restorer of the monarchy. Mirabeau forgot that it was more easy
to do harm than good, and thought himself the political Atlas of the whole
world.

Outrages and mockery were incessantly mingled with the audacious
proceedings of the revolutionists. It was customary to give serenades
under the King's windows on New Year's Day. The band of the National
Guard repaired thither on that festival in 1791; in allusion to the
liquidation of the debts of the State, decreed by the Assembly, they
played solely, and repeatedly, that air from the comic opera of the
"Debts," the burden of which is, "But our creditors are paid, and that
makes us easy."

On the same day some "conquerors of the Bastille," grenadiers of the
Parisian guard, preceded by military music, came to present to the young
Dauphin, as a New Year's gift, a box of dominoes, made of some of the
stone and marble of which that state prison was built. The Queen gave me
this inauspicious curiosity, desiring me to preserve it, as it would be a
curious illustration of the history of the Revolution. Upon the lid were
engraved some bad verses, the purport of which was as follows: "Stones
from those walls, which enclosed the innoc