the Queen disposed to make that sacrifice for her peace; that he had
thought of me, and if her Majesty would give him the twenty-four thousand
francs, he would hand the manuscript to me.

I communicated this proposal to the Queen, who rejected it, and desired me
to answer that at the time when she had power to punish the hawkers of
these libels she deemed them so atrocious and incredible that she despised
them too much to stop them; that if she were imprudent and weak enough to
buy a single one of them, the Jacobins might possibly discover the
circumstance through their espionage; that were this libel brought up, it
would be printed nevertheless, and would be much more dangerous when they
apprised the public of the means she had used to suppress it.

Baron d'Aubier, gentleman-in-ordinary to the King, and my particular
friend, had a good memory and a clear way of communicating the substance
of the debates and decrees of the National Assembly. I went daily to the
Queen's apartments to repeat all this to the King, who used to say, on
seeing me, "Ah! here's the Postillon par Calais,"--a newspaper of the
time.

M. d'Aubier one day said to me: "The Assembly has been much occupied with
an information laid by the workmen of the Sevres manufactory. They
brought to the President's office a bundle of pamphlets which they said
were the life of Marie Antoinette. The director of the manufactory was
ordered up to the bar, and declared he had received orders to burn the
printed sheets in question in the furnaces used for baking his china."

While I was relating this business to the Queen the King coloured and held
his head down over his plate. The Queen said to him, "Do you know
anything about this, Sire?" The King made no answer. Madame Elisabeth