rg." The Queen said, as she read this letter, "Perhaps he
speaks but too truly; who can decide upon so disastrous a position as ours
has become?" The day on which I gave the Queen my brother's first letter
to read she had several audiences to give to ladies and other persons
belonging to the Court, who came on purpose to inform her that my brother
was an avowed constitutionalist and revolutionist. The Queen replied, "I
know it; Madame Campan has told me so." Persons jealous of my situation
having subjected me to mortifications, and these unpleasant circumstances
recurring daily, I requested the Queen's permission to withdraw from
Court. She exclaimed against the very idea, represented it to me as
extremely dangerous for my own reputation, and had the kindness to add
that, for my sake as well as for her own, she never would consent to it.
After this conversation I retired to my apartment. A few minutes later a
footman brought me this note from the Queen: "I have never ceased to give
you and yours proofs of my attachment; I wish to tell you in writing that
I have full faith in your honour and fidelity, as well as in your other
good qualities; and that I ever rely on the zeal and address you exert to
serve me."

[I had just received this letter from the Queen when M. de la Chapelle,
commissary-general of the King's household, and head of the offices of M.
de Laporte, minister of the civil list, came to see me. The palace having
been already sacked by the brigands on the 20th of June, 1792, he proposed
that I should entrust the paper to him, that he might place it in a safer
situation than the apartments of the Queen. When he returned into his
offices he placed the letter she had condescended to write to me behind a
large picture in his closet; but on the loth of August M. de la Chapelle
was thrown into the prisons of the Abbaye, and the committee of public
safety established themselves in his offices, whence they issued all their
decrees of death. There it was that a villainous servant belonging to M.
de Laporte went to declare that in the minister's apartments, under a
board in the floor, a number of papers would be found. They were brought
forth, and M. de Laporte was sent to the scaffold, where he suffered for
having betrayed the State by serving his master and sovereign. M. de la
Chapelle was saved, as if by a miracle, from the massacres of the 2d of
September. The committee of public safety having removed to t