onveyed to her she was kind
enough to inform me of them; and they had no effect on the confidence with
which she continued to honour me, and which I am happy to think I have
justified even at the risk of my life.

Mesdames, the King's aunts, set out from Bellevue in the beginning of the
year 1791. Alexandre Berthier, afterwards Prince de Neufchatel, then a
colonel on the staff of the army, and commandant of the National Guard of
Versailles, facilitated the departure of Mesdames. The Jacobins of that
town procured his dismissal, and he ran the greatest risk, on account of
having rendered this service to these Princesses.

I went to take leave of Madame Victoire. I little thought that I was then
seeing her for the last time. She received me alone in her closet, and
assured me that she hoped, as well as wished, soon to return to France;
that the French would be much to be pitied if the excesses of the
Revolution should arrive at such a pitch as to force her to prolong her
absence.

[General Berthier justified the monarch's confidence by a firm and prudent
line of conduct which entitled him to the highest military honours, and to
the esteem of the great warrior whose fortune, dangers, and glory he
afterwards shared. This officer, full of honour, and gifted with the
highest courage, was shut into the courtyard of Bellevue by his own troop,
and ran great risk of being murdered. It was not until the 14th of March
that he succeeded in executing his instructions ("Memoirs of Mesdames," by
Montigny, vol. i.)]

I knew from the Queen that the departure of Mesdames was deemed
necessary, in order to leave the King free to act when he should be
compelled to go away with his family. It being impossible that the
constitution of the clergy should be otherwise than in direct opposition
to the religious principles of Mesdames, they thought their journey to
Rome would be attributed to piety alone. It was, however, difficult to
deceive an Assembly which weighed the slightest actions of the royal
family, and from that moment they were more than ever alive to what was
passing at the Tuileries.

Mesdames were desirous of taking Madame Elisabeth to Rome. The free
exercise of religion, the happiness of taking refuge with the head of the
Church, and the prospect of living in safety with her aunts, whom she
tenderly loved, were sacrificed by that virtuous Princess to her
attachment to the King.

The oath required of priests by the c