Page:Napoleon (O'Connor 1896).djvu/139

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The Estimate of an Official.
123

vain attempts to get into the château, which was then being threatened. If I make a note of this fact it is not because of its actual importance, but because of a couple of circumstances pertaining thereto, one of which was of a fatal nature, while the other was fortunate to a degree. The card which I had asked for on August 9th reached me by the local post two days later, when all was over. How was it that it should have been so long delayed in transmission without being intercepted? How was it that it did not then bring about my arrest? It was a piece of good luck which I have never been able to explain. Fate was not equally kind to the Prince de Saint-Maurice. His readiness to serve the King had no other result than mine, with the exception that his card did not reach him, and that he never discovered any trace of it. He lost his head on the scaffold, under the accusation of having been one of the defenders of the Tuileries."


VII.

A NARROW ESCAPE.

The following picture gives even a more vivid glimpse of the perils which every friend of the Old Order ran at this period. It took place after the King had been compelled to take refuge in the Assembly:

"The inevitable consequences of this event were a fearful state of confusion and an actual