The King was not ignorant of these popular threats; he also knew the days
on which money was scattered about Paris, and once or twice the Queen
prevented my going there, saying there would certainly be a riot the next
day, because she knew that a quantity of crown pieces had been distributed
in the faubourgs.

[I have seen a six-franc crown piece, which certainly served to pay some
wretch on the night of the 12th of July; the words "Midnight, 12th July,
three pistols," were rather deeply engraven on it. They were, no doubt, a
password for the first insurrection. --MADAME COMPAN]

On the evening of the 14th of July the King came to the Queen's
apartments, where I was with her Majesty alone; he conversed with her
respecting the scandalous report disseminated by the factious, that he had
had the Chamber of the National Assembly undermined, in order to blow it
up; but he added that it became him to treat such absurd assertions with
contempt, as usual; I ventured to tell him that I had the evening before
supped with M. Begouen, one of the deputies, who said that there were very
respectable persons who thought that this horrible contrivance had been
proposed without the King's knowledge. "Then," said his Majesty, "as the
idea of such an atrocity was not revolting to so worthy a man as M.
Begouen, I will order the chamber to be examined early to-morrow morning."
In fact, it will be seen by the King's, speech to the National Assembly,
on the 15th of July, that the suspicions excited obtained his attention.
"I know," said he in the speech in question, "that unworthy insinuations
have been made; I know there are those who have dared to assert that your
persons are not safe; can it be necessary to give you assurances upon the
subject of reports so culpable, denied beforehand by my known character?"

The proceedings of the 15th of July produced no mitigation of the