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The judge who read his condemnation to him told him that his life was a sacrifice which he owed to public tranquillity. It was asserted at the time that Favras was given up as a victim in order to satisfy the people and save the Baron de Besenval, who was a prisoner in the Abbaye.
M. de Besenval says that he found himself, without knowing how he came there, in an apartment unadorned, but very conveniently furnished, of the existence of which he was till then utterly ignorant. He was astonished, he adds, not that the Queen should have so many facilities, but that she should have ventured to procure them.
In this instance, I exercised my prerogative decidedly, and even so much so as to create displeasure; but I anticipated the consequences, which actually ensued, and preferred to risk my royal mistress's displeasure rather than her reputation. The dispute, which led to the duel, was on some point of etiquette; and the Baron de Besenval was to attend as second to one of the parties.
But behind the Duchess Diana stood her brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess de Polignac, who were ambitious, proud, and avaricious; behind the Duchess Diana stood the three favorites of the royal society in Trianon Lords Vaudreuil, Besenval, D'Adhemar- -who desired embassies, ministerial posts, orders, and other tokens of honor.
However, at the time I speak of, the society around the Comtesse Jules was fully engaged in gratifying the young Queen. Of this the Marquis de Vaudreuil was a conspicuous member; he was a brilliant man, the friend and protector of men of letters and celebrated artists. The Baron de Besenval added to the bluntness of the Swiss all the adroitness of a French courtier.
Speaking of the strange presumption of men, and the reserve with which women ought always to treat them, the Queen added that age did not deprive them of the hope of pleasing, if they retained any agreeable qualities; that she had treated the Baron de Besenval as a brave Swiss, agreeable, polished, and witty, whose gray hairs had induced her to look upon him as a man whom she might see without harm; but that she had been much deceived.
They even ventured to attack the first company of soldiers whom De Besenval sent to the rescue; and it was not till he dispatched a battalion with a couple of field-pieces to the spot that the plunderers were expelled from the house and the riot was quelled.
The queen trembled and raised her great eyes with a look full of astonishment and pain to Besenval, then to the other friends; she read upon all faces alienation and unkindly feeling.
Beaulieu, Marshal. Beaumarchais, M. Beauty of Marie Antoinette. Beauvau, M. de, and the Opposition. Bertrand, M.. Besenval, Baron de; and the Reveillon riot. Bishop Lamourette; Talleyrand. Body-guard, ball given by the; and the Versailles mob; protecting the court. Boehmer, the court jeweler. Boillé, Marquis de; flies from France. Boutourlin's, M., attacks on M. Necker. Brandywine, Battle of.
"Your majesty was in Paris?" asked Besenval, hesitatingly, and with a searching glance of his cunning, dark eyes, directed to the sad countenance of Marie Antoinette. "I was in Paris," answered she, with a flush of joy; "and the good Parisians welcomed the wife of the king and the mother of the children of France with a storm of enthusiasm."
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