at he made use of the most
criminal means in order to blacken her reputation. I can testify that I
have seen in the hands of the Queen a manuscript copy of the infamous
memoirs of the woman De Lamotte, which had been brought to her from
London, and in which all those passages where a total ignorance of the
customs of Courts had occasioned that wretched woman to make blunders
which would have been too palpable were corrected in M. de Calonne's own
handwriting.
The two King's Guards who were wounded at her Majesty's door on the 6th of
October were M. du Repaire and M. de Miomandre de Sainte-Marie; on the
dreadful night of the 6th of October the latter took the post of the
former the moment he became incapable of maintaining it.
A considerable number of the Body Guards, who were wounded on the 6th of
October, betook themselves to the infirmary at Versailles. The brigands
wanted to make their way into the infirmary in order to massacre them. M.
Viosin, head surgeon of that infirmary, ran to the entrance hall, invited
the assailants to refresh themselves, ordered wine to be brought, and
found means to direct the Sister Superior to remove the Guards into a ward
appropriated to the poor, and dress them in the caps and greatcoats
furnished by the institution. The good sisters executed this order so
promptly that the Guards were removed, dressed as paupers, and their beds
made, while the assassins were drinking. They searched all the wards, and
fancied they saw no persons there but the sick poor; thus the Guards were
saved.
M. de Miomandre was at Paris, living on terms of friendship with another
of the Guards, who, on the same day, received a gunshot wound from the
brigands in another part of the Chateau. These two officers, who were
attended and cured together at the infirmary of Versailles, were almost
constant companions; they were recognised at the Palais Royal, and
insulted. The Queen thought it necessary for them to quit Paris. She
desired me to write to M. de Miomandre de Sainte-Marie, and tell him to
come to me at eight o'clock in the evening; and then to communicate to him
her wish to hear of his being in safety; and ordered me, when he had made
up his mind to go, to tell him in her name that gold could not repay such
a service as he had rendered; that she hoped some day to be in
sufficiently happy circumstances to recompense him as she ought; but that
for the present her offer of money was only that of a si
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