Fersen obtained permission from Louis XVI. to accomplish the mission confided to him by Gustavus III. He left Stockholm under an assumed name and with the passport of a Swedish courier, and reached Paris without accident, February 13, 1792. He was so adroit and prudent that no one suspected his presence. On the very evening of his arrival he wrote in his journal: "Went to the Queen by my usual road; very few National Guards; did not see the King." Fersen, therefore, only reappeared at the Tuileries in the darkness, like a fugitive or { 19} an outlaw. He found the Queen pale with grief and with hair whitened by sorrow and emotion. It was a solemn moment. The storm was raging within France and beyond it. Terrible omens, snares, and dangers lay on every side. One might have said that the Tuileries were about to be swallowed up in a gulf of fire and blood.
The next day Fersen saw the King. He wrote in his journal: "Tuesday, 14. Saw the King at six in the evening. He will not go and can not, on account of the extreme vigilance. In fact, he scruples at it, having so often promised to remain, for he is an honest man.... He sees that force is the only resource; but, being weak, he thinks it impossible to resume all his authority.... Unless he were constantly encouraged, I am not sure he would not be tempted to negotiate with the rebels. He said to me afterwards: 'That's all very well! We are by ourselves and we can talk; but nobody ever found himself in my position. I know I missed the right moment; it was the 14th of July; we ought to have gone then, and I wanted to, but how could I when Monsieur himself begged me to stay, and Marshal de Broglie, who was in command, said to me: "Yes, we can go to Metz. But what shall we do when we get there?" I lost the opportunity and never found it again. I have been abandoned by everybody.'" Louis XVI. desired Fersen to warn the Powers that they must not be surprised at anything he might be forced to do; that he was { 20} obliged, that it was the effect of constraint. "They must put me out of the question," he added, "and let me do what I can."
Fersen had a long talk with Marie Antoinette the same day. She entered into full details about the present and especially about the past. She explained why the flight to Varennes, in which Fersen had taken such a prominent part, and which had succeeded so well so long as he directed it, had ended in failure. The Queen described the anguish of the arrest and the return. To the project of a new effort to escape, she replied by pointing out the implacable surveillance of which she was the object, and the effervescence of popular passions, which this time would overleap all restraint if the fugitives were taken. It would be better for the royal family to suffer together than to expose themselves to die separately. It would be better to die like princes, who abdicate majesty only with life, than as vagabonds, under a vulgar disguise. "The Queen," adds Fersen, "told me that she saw Alexander Lameth and Duport; that they always tell her that there is no remedy but foreign troops; failing that, all is lost, that this cannot last, that they have gone farther than they wished to. In spite of all this, she thinks them malicious, does not trust them, but uses them as best she can. All the ministers are traitors who betray the King." Fersen had a final interview with Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette on February 21, 1792. By February 24, { 21} he had returned to Brussels. He was profoundly moved on quitting the Tuileries, but, dismal and lugubrious as his forebodings may have been, how much more sombre was the reality to prove!