Her court was forsaken; she saw none but the shadows of authority; the ministers forced on her by M.de La Fayette, before whom she was compelled to mask her countenance in smiles.

Her apartments were watched by spies in the guise of servants.
It was necessary to mislead them, in order to have interviews with the few friends who remained to her.

Private staircases, dark corridors, were the means by which at night her secret counsellors obtained access to her.

These meetings resembled conspiracies; she left them every time with a different train of ideas, which she communicated to the king, whose behaviour thus acquired the incoherence of a woman persecuted and distressed.

Measures of resistance, bribing the Assembly, an entire surrender of the constitution, attempts by force, an assumption of royal dignity, repentance, weakness, terror, and flight,--all were discussed, planned, decided on, prepared and abandoned, on the same day.