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The Comte de St. Germain - by Isabel Cooper-Oakley - [1912]
The following has been  extracted from Souvenirs de Marie-Antoinette, by the Countess d’Adhémar

On returning home, a note was given to me, thus worded:--

'All is lost, Countess! This sun is the last which will set on the monarchy; to-morrow it will exist no more, chaos will prevail, anarchy unequalled. You know all I have tried to do to give affairs a different turn; I have been scorned; now it is too late.
'. . . Keep yourself in retirement, I will watch over you; be prudent, and you will survive the tempest that will have beaten down all. I resist the desire that I have to see you; what should we say to each other? You would ask of me the impossible; I can do nothing for the King, nothing for the Queen, nothing for the Royal Family, nothing even for the Duc d’Orléans, who will be triumphant to-morrow, and who, all in due course, will cross the Capitol to be thrown from the top of the Tarpeian rock. Nevertheless, if you would care very much to meet with an old friend, go to the eight o'clock Mass at the Récollets, and enter the second chapel on the right hand.

'I have the honour to be . . .

'COMTE DE ST.--GERMAIN.'

At this name, already guessed, a cry of surprise escaped me; he still living, he who was said to have died in 1784, and whom I had not heard spoken of for long years past--he had suddenly re-appeared, and at what a moment, what an epoch! Why had he come to France? Was he then never to have done with life? For I knew some old people who had seen him bearing the stamp of forty or fifty years of age, and that at the beginning of the eighteenth century!

It was one o'clock at night when I read his letter; the hour for the rendez-vous was early, so I went to bed; I slept little, frightful dreams tormented me and, in their hideous grotesqueness, I beheld the future, without however understanding it. As day dawned, I arose worn out. I had ordered my butler to bring me some very strong coffee, and I took two cups of it, which revived me. At half past seven I summoned a sedan chair, and, followed by my confidential old servant, I repaired to the Récollets.

The church was empty; I posted my Laroche as sentinel and I entered the chapel named; soon after, and almost before I had collected my thoughts in the presence of God, behold a man approaching. . . . It was himself in person. . . . Yes! with the same countenance as in 1760, while mine was covered with furrows and marks of decrepitude. . . . I stood impressed by it; he smiled at me, came forward, took my hand, kissed it gallantly. I was so troubled that I allowed him to do it in spite of the sanctity of the place.

'There you are!' I said. 'Where have you come from?'

'I am come from China and Japan. . . .'

'Or rather from the other world!'

'Yes, indeed, pretty nearly so! Ah! Madame, down there (I underline the expression) nothing is so strange as what happens here. How is the monarchy of Louis XIV. disposed of? You who did not see it cannot make the comparison, but I. . . .'

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"'Do not let me detain you longer,' he said; 'there is already disturbance in the city. I am like Athalie, I wished to see and I have seen. Now I will take up my part again and leave you I have a journey to take to Sweden; a great crime is brewing there, I am going to try to prevent it. His Majesty Gustavus III. interests me, he is worth more than his renown.'

'And he is menaced?'

'Yes; no longer will "happy as a king" be said, and still less as a queen.'

'Farewell, then, Monsieur; in truth I wish I had not listened to you.'

'Thus it is ever with us truthful people; deceivers are welcomed, but fie upon whoever says that which will come to pass! Farewell, Madame; au revoir!'

I arose at last and when I had found Laroche again I asked him if he had seen the Comte de St.--Germain as he went out.

'The Minister, Madame?'

'No, he has long been dead; the other.'

'Ah! the clever conjuror?'

'No, Madame; did Madame la Comtesse meet him?

'He went out just now, he passed close to You.'

'I must have been distracted, for I did not notice him.'

'It is impossible, Laroche, you are joking.'

'The worse the times are the more respectful I am to Madame.'

'What! by this door--close to you--he has passed?'

'I do not mean to deny it, but he did not strike my eye.'

'Then he had made himself invisible! I am lost in astonishment'.

These are the last words that the Countess d’Adhémar writes in connection with the Comte de St. Germain or that friend who had tried so vainly to save them from the storm which was then raging on all sides.