requested him to explain what it meant. Louis was still silent. I
withdrew hastily. A few minutes afterwards the Queen came to my room and
informed me that the King, out of regard for her, had purchased the whole
edition struck off from the manuscript which I had mentioned to her, and
that M. de Laporte had not been able to devise any more secret way of
destroying the work than that of having it burnt at Sevres, among two
hundred workmen, one hundred and eighty of whom must, in all probability,
be Jacobins! She told me she had concealed her vexation from the King;
that he was in consternation, and that she could say nothing, since his
good intentions and his affection for her had been the cause of the
mistake.

[M. de Laporte had by order of the King bought up the whole edition of the
"Memoirs" of the notorious Madame de Lamotte against the Queen. Instead
of destroying them immediately, he shut them up in one of the closets in
his house, The alarming and rapid growth of the rebellion, the arrogance
of the crowd of brigands, who in great measure composed the populace of
Paris, and the fresh excesses daily resulting from it, rendered the
intendant of the civil list apprehensive that some mob might break into
his house, carry off these "Memoirs," and spread them among the public.
In order to prevent this he gave orders to have the "Memoirs" burnt with
every necessary precaution; and the clerk who received the order entrusted
the execution of it to a man named Riston, a dangerous Intriguer, formerly
an advocate of Nancy, who had a twelve-month before escaped the gallows by
favour of the new principles and the patriotism of the new tribunals,
although convicted of forging the great seal, and fabricating decrees of
the council. This Riston, finding himself entrusted with a commission
which concerned her Majesty, and the mystery attending which bespoke
something of importance, was less anxious to execute it faithfully than to
make a parade of this mark of confidence. On the 30th of May, at ten in