Marie Antoinette who had been hesitant, accepted his wife's decision to flee with the help of foreign powers and counter-revolutionary forces. Fersen and Breteuil, who represented her in the courts of Europe, were put in charge of the escape plan, while Marie Antoinette continued her negotiations with some of the moderate leaders of the French Revolution. There had been several plots designed to help the royal family escape, which the queen had rejected because she would not leave without the king, or which had ceased to be viable because of the king's indecision. Once Louis XVI finally did commit to a plan,
Marie Antoinette and remarked in a letter to Auguste Marie Raymond d'Arenberg, comte de La Marck, that she was the only person the king had by him: "La reine est le seul homme que le roi ait auprès de lui." An agreement was reached turning Mirabeau into one of her political allies: Marie Antoinette promised to pay him 6000 livres per month and one million if he succeeded in his mission to restore the king's authority. The only time the royal couple returned to Paris in that period was on 14 July to attend the "Fête de la Fédération", an official ceremony