the police of M. de Laporte gave notice that nothing more was to be
dreaded from that sort of plot against the King's life; that the plan was
entirely changed; and that all the blows now to be struck would be
directed as much against the throne as against the person of the
sovereign.

There are others besides myself who know that at this time one of the
things about which the Queen most desired to be satisfied was the opinion
of the famous Pitt. She would sometimes say to me, "I never pronounce the
name of Pitt without feeling a chill like that of death." (I repeat here
her very expressions.) "That man is the mortal enemy of France; and he
takes a dreadful revenge for the impolitic support given by the Cabinet of
Versailles to the American insurgents. He wishes by our destruction to
guarantee the maritime power of his country forever against the efforts
made by the King to improve his marine power and their happy results
during the last war. He knows that it is not only the King's policy but
his private inclination to be solicitous about his fleets, and that the
most active step he has taken during his whole reign was to visit the port
of Cherbourg. Pitt had served the cause of the French Revolution from the
first disturbances; he will perhaps serve it until its annihilation. I
will endeavour to learn to what point he intends to lead us, and I am
sending M.----- to London for that purpose. He has been intimately
connected with Pitt, and they have often had political conversations
respecting the French Government. I will get him to make him speak out,
at least so far as such a man can speak out." Some time afterwards the
Queen told me that her secret envoy was returned from London, and that all
he had been able to wring from Pitt, whom he found alarmingly reserved,
was that he would not suffer the French monarchy to perish; that to suffer
the revolutionary spirit to erect an organised republic in France would be
a great error, affecting the tranquillity of Europe. "Whenever," said
she, "Pitt expressed himself upon the necessity of supporting monarchy in
France, he maintained the most profound silence upon what concerns the
monarch. The result of these conversations is anything but encouraging;
but, even as to that monarchy which he wishes to save, will he have means
and strength to save it if he suffers us to fall?"

The death of the Emperor Leopold took place on the 1st of March, 1792.
When the news of this eve