I have learned since my return from the Providence, the death of Madame
Elizabeth. I was ill when it happened, and my friends took some pains to
conceal an event which they knew would affect me. In tracing the motives
of the government for this horrid action, it may perhaps be sufficiently
accounted for in the known piety and virtues of this Princess; but
reasons of another kind have been suggested to me, and which, in all
likelihood, contributed to hasten it. She was the only person of the
royal family of an age competent for political transactions who had not
emigrated, and her character extorted respect even from her enemies. [The
Prince of Conti was too insignificant to be an object of jealousy in this
way.] She must therefore, of course, since the death of the Queen, have
been an object of jealousy to all parties. Robespierre might fear that
she would be led to consent to some arrangement with a rival faction for
placing the King on the throne--the Convention were under similar
apprehensions with regard to him; so that the fate of this illustrious
sufferer was probably gratifying to every part of the republicans.
I find, on reading her trial, (if so it may be called,) a repetition of
one of the principal charges against the Queen--that of trampling on the
national colours at Versailles, during an entertainment given to some
newly-arrived troops. Yet I have been assured by two gentlemen,
perfectly informed on the subject, and who were totally unacquainted with
each other, that this circumstance, which has been so usefully enlarged
upon, is false,* and that the whole calumny originated in the jealousy of
a part of the national guard who had not been invited.
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