Admiral d'Estaing, formerly commandant of the guard of Versailles; Manuel,
the ex-procureur of the Commune; Latour-du-Pin, minister of war in 1789;
the venerable Bailly, who, it was said, had been, with La Fayette, an
accomplice in the journey to Varennes; lastly, Valaze one of the
Girondists destined to the scaffold, were taken from their prisons and
compelled to give evidence.

No precise fact was elicited. Some had seen the Queen in high spirits
when the Life Guards testified their attachment; others had seen her vexed
and dejected while being conducted to Paris, or brought back from
Varennes; these had been present at splendid festivities which must have
cost enormous sums; those had heard it said in the ministerial offices
that the Queen was adverse to the sanction of the decrees. An ancient
waiting-woman of the Queen had heard the Duc de Coigny say, in 1788, that
the Emperor had already received two hundred millions from France to make
war upon the Turks.

The cynical Hebert, being brought before the unfortunate Queen, dared at
length to prefer the charges wrung from the young Prince. He said that
Charles Capet had given Simon an account of the journey to Varennes, and
mentioned La Fayette and Bailly as having cooperated in it. He then added
that this boy was addicted to odious and very premature vices for his age;
that he had been surprised by Simon, who, on questioning him, learned that
he derived from his mother the vices in which he indulged. Hebert said
that it was no doubt the intention of Marie Antoinette, by weakening thus,
early the physical constitution of her son, to secure to herself the means
of ruling him in case he should ever ascend the throne. The rumours which
had been whispered for twenty years by a malicious Court had given the
people a most unfavourable opinion of the morals of the Queen. That
audience, however, though wholly Jacobin, was disgusted at the accusations