on the table, and empty jewel boxes lying about; she denounced these
facts to M. de Gouvion, M. de La Fayette's _aide-de-camp_, whose
mistress she was, and M. de Gouvion reported all again to the mayor of
Paris and his general. But these denunciations had been so often made,
and by so many different persons, and had so often proved false, that
now but little importance was attached to them. However, in consequence
of the revelations of this woman, a stricter watch than usual was kept
around the chateau. M. de Gouvion detained several officers of the
national guard under various pretexts in the palace, he placed them at
the different doors, and he himself, with five _chefs-de-bataillon_,
passed part of the night at the door of the apartment formerly occupied
by the Duke de Villequier, which had been specially pointed out to him.
He had been told (which was the case) that there existed a secret
communication from the queen's cabinet to the apartment of the former
captain of the guard; and that the king, who it is well known was an
expert locksmith, had made false keys that opened all the doors; at last
these reports (that went the round of all the clubs) transformed every
patriot on that night into the king's gaoler. We read with surprise in
the journal of Camille Desmoulins of the 20th of June, 1791:--"The
evening passed most tranquilly at Paris; I returned at eleven o'clock
from the Jacobins' Club with Danton and several other patriots; we only
met a single patrole all the way. Paris appeared to me that night so
deserted, that I could not help remarking it. One of us, Fréron, who had
in his pocket a letter warning him that the king would escape that
night, wished to observe the chateau; he saw M. de La Fayette enter it
at eleven."

A little further on Camille Desmoulins relates the restless fears of
the people on the fatal night. "The night," says he "on which the family
of the Capets escaped, Busebi, a perruke-maker in the Rue de Bourbon,