His military genius dreamed of a triumphant expedition to the banks of the Seine.

It was there that he desired to acquire glory.

He had visited Paris in his youth; under the name of the Count de Haga he had partaken of the hospitalities of Versailles.

Marie Antoinette, then in the brilliancy of her youth and beauty, now appeared humiliated, and a captive in the hands of a pitiless people.

To deliver this woman, restore the throne, to make himself at once feared and blessed by this capital, seemed to him one of those adventures formerly sought by crowned chevaliers.