Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/116

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106
AN ADVENTURE

believe that there is not likely to be any striking documentary evidence other than we have dealt with.

10. The historical interest of the story seems to depend on the truth of the tradition that the Queen went to Trianon on October 5th, 1789. We can find no negative evidence of this, but extremely little which is both affirmative and trustworthy. Madame Campan's short statement remains the basis of other people's longer and more detailed narratives. General La Fayette's full account of the day was burned by his wife during the Terror. Count Fersen's memoirs were also partly destroyed. The Abbé Bossuet had Madame de Tourzel's careful history of that day burned; but in the published memoirs she says that she was in residence that day at Versailles, as Gouvernante des enfants de France; she does not mention having gone to Trianon, as implied by Marion's story, but it is still possible. Most French historians now adopt Madame Campan's statement, but (in the words of one of them) "with some doubts." It is worth mentioning that many later historians insert the fact (though it is not recorded by Madame