having upon my father's death declared
himself the protector of my brother, he supported him against the enemies
his views had created. But on his death M. de Montmorin, being much in
need of the long experience in business which he found in M. de Rayneval,
was guided solely by the latter. The office of which my brother was the
head was suppressed. He then went to St. Petersburg, strongly recommended
to the Comte de Segur, minister from France to that Court, who appointed
him secretary of Legation. Some time afterwards the Comte de Segur left
him at St. Petersburg, charged with the affairs of France. After his
return from Russia, M. Genet was appointed ambassador to the United States
by the party called Girondists, the deputies who headed it being from the
department of the Gironde. He was recalled by the Robespierre party,
which overthrew the former faction, on the 31st of May, 1793, and
condemned to appear before the Convention. Vice-President Clinton, at
that time Governor of New York, offered him an asylum in his house and the
hand of his daughter, and M. Genet established himself prosperously in
America.

When my brother quitted Versailles he was much hurt at being deprived of a
considerable income for having penned a memorial which his zeal alone had
dictated, and the importance of which was afterwards but too well
understood. I perceived from his correspondence that he inclined to some
of the new notions. He told me it was right he should no longer conceal
from me that he sided with the constitutional party; that the King had in
fact commanded it, having himself accepted the constitution; that he would
proceed firmly in that course, because in this case disingenuousness would
be fatal, and that he took that side of the question because he had had it
proved to him that the foreign powers would not serve the King's cause
without advancing pretensions prompted by long-standing interests, which
always would influence their councils; that he saw no salvation for the
King and Queen but from within France, and that he would serve the
constitutional King as he served him before the Revolution. And lastly,
he requested me to impart to the Queen the real sentiments of one of his
Majesty's agents at a foreign Court. I immediately went to the Queen and
gave her my brother's letter; she read it attentively, and said, "This is
the letter of a young man led astray by discontent and ambition; I know
you do not think as