her pack
her trunks, which she sent in advance to Morainville. She did not dare go
to get her diamonds, which were locked up in the Bank of France; that
would excite suspicion, and she had to content herself with such jewelry
as she had at her residence. She left in a coach with my father, saying as
she embraced me that her absence would be brief, for it would be easy
enough to crush the vile mob. She went down to Morainville, and there,
thanks to the devotion of Guillaume Carpentier and of his sons, she was
carried to England in a contrabandist vessel. As she was accustomed to
luxury, she put into her trunks the plate of the chateau and also several
valuable pictures. My father had given her sixty thousand francs and
charged her to be economical.

Soon I found myself in the midst of terrible scenes that I have not the
courage, my dear girls, to recount. The memory of them makes me even
to-day tremble and turn pale. I will only tell you that one evening a
furious populace entered our palace. I saw my husband dragged far from me
by those wretches, and just as two of the monsters were about to seize me
Bastien took me into his arms, and holding me tightly against his bosom
leaped from a window and took to flight with all his speed.

Happy for us that it was night and that the monsters were busy pillaging
the house. They did not pursue us at all, and my faithful Bastien took me
to the home of his cousin Claudine Leroy. She was a worker in lace, whom,
with my consent, he was to have married within the next fortnight. I had
lost consciousness, but Claudine and Bastien cared for me so well that
they brought me back to life, and I came to myself to learn that my father
and my husband had been arrested and conveyed to the Conciergerie.

My despair was great, as you may well think. Claudine arranged a bed for
me in a closet [cloisette] adjoining her chamber, and there I remained
hidden, dying of fear and grief, as you may well suppose.

At the end of four days I heard some one come into Claudine's room, and
then a deep male voice. My heart ceased to beat and I was about to faint
away, when I recognized the voice of my faithful Joseph. I opened the door
and threw myself upon his breast, crying over and over:

"O Joseph! dear Joseph!"

He pressed me to his bosom, giving me every sort of endearing name, and at
length revealed to me the plan he had formed, to take me at once to
Morainville under the name of Claudine Leroy. He