Amongst others who arrived were the Duchesse de Fleury and Princesse Joseph de Monaco. The latter was a gentle, charming woman, whose devotion to her children was the cause of her death. After having escaped from France and arrived safely in Rome, she was actually foolish enough to go back to Paris with the idea of saving the remains of her fortune for her children. The Terror was in full force; she was arrested and condemned. Those who wished to save her entreated her to declare herself enceinte, by which many women had been spared. She would anyhow have gained a reprieve, and as it happened her life would have been saved, as the ninth Thermidor was rapidly approaching. But her husband was far away, and she indignantly refused, preferring death to such an alternative.Have as much prudence as I will have courage, but calm your head.I cant, he said. I am obliged to go to another village.
Director
One evening he was at the Opera ball, then frequented by people in good society. Masked or not, they were equally known to M. dEspinchal, who as he walked through the rooms saw a man whom he actually did not know, wandering about with distracted looks. He went up to him, asking if he could be of any use, and was told by the perplexed stranger that he had just arrived from Orlans with his wife, who had insisted on coming to the Opera ball, that he had lost her in the crowd, and that she did not know the name of the h?tel or street where they were. Calm yourself, said M. dEspinchal, Madame, your wife is sitting by the second window in the foyer. I will take you to her, which he did. The husband overwhelmed him with thanks and asked how he could possibly have known her.Sire, I know that it is my duty to obey your Majesty in all things.In reading the history of these events one cannot help feeling that all ones sympathy is for Marie Antoinette and her children, but that a King whose conduct was so despicable, who shrank from shedding the blood of infamous traitors and murderers, while he allowed them to massacre his faithful soldiers and friends, was not worth dying for.