At times her anger mastered her, her eyes flashed, her figure was

straightened up, and the suffering martyr was transformed for an

instant into the proud, commanding queen.

"I will not bear it!" she cried, walking up and down with great

strides, "I will speak to them; they shall not insult me without

hearing my justification. Yes, I will go down to these people, who

call me a foreigner. I will say to them, 'Frenchmen, people have had

the want of feeling to tell you that I do not love France, I, the

mother of a dauphin, I--'" [Footnote: The queen's own words.-See

Campan, "Memoires," vol. II. ]

But her voice choked in her tears, and she fled to the extreme end

of the room, fell sobbing on her knees, and held both her hands to

her ears, in order not to hear the dreadful insults which came up

from below and through her windows.

Thus, amid trials which renewed themselves daily, the months passed

by. The queen had no longer any hope. She had given up every thing,

even the hope of an honorable end, of a death such as becomes a

queen, proud and dignified beneath the ruins of a palace laid low by

an exasperated populace. She knew that the king would never bring

himself to meet such a death, that his weakness would yield to all

humiliation, and his good-nature resist all measures that might

perhaps bring help. She had sought in vain to inspire him with her

zeal. Louis was a good man, but a bad king; his was not a nature to

rule and govern, but rather to serve as the scape-goat for the sins

of his fathers, and to fall as a victim for the misdeeds which his

ancestors had committed, and through which they had excited the

wrath of the people, the divine Nemesis that never sleeps.

The queen knew and felt this, and this knowledge lay like a mourning

veil over her whole thought and being, filling her at times with a

moody resignation, and at times with a swiftly-kindling and wrathful

pain.

"I am content that we be the victims," cried she, wringing her

hands, "but I cannot bear to think that my children too are to be

punished for what they have not committed."

This thought of her children was the pillar which always raised the

queen up again, when the torture of her daily life cast her to the

ground. She would, she must live for her children. She must, so long

as a breath remained in her, devote all her powers to retain for her

son the dauphin at least the crown beneath whose burden his father

sank. She wanted nothing more for herself, all for her son alone.

There were still true friends who wanted to save the queen. Secret

tidings came to her that all was ready for her escape. It was

against her that the popular rage was chiefly directed, and her life

was even threatened. Twice had the attempt been made to kill the

queen, and the most violent denunciations of the populace were

directed against her. It was therefore the queen whom her friends

wanted most to save. Every thing was prepared for the flight, true

and devoted friends were waiting for her, ready to conduct her to

the boundaries of France, where she should meet deputies sent by her

nephew, the Emperor Francis. The plan was laid with the greatest

care; nothing but the consent of the queen was needed to bring it to

completion, and save her from certain destruction. But Marie

Antoinette withheld her acquiescence. "It is of no consequence about

my life," she said. "I know that I must die, and I am prepared for

it. If the king and my children cannot escape with me, I remain; for

my place is at the side of my husband and my children."

At last the king himself, inspired by the courage and energy of his

wife, ventured to oppose the decisions and decrees of the all-

powerful Assembly. It had put forth two new decrees. It had resolved

upon the deportation of all priests beyond the limits of France, and

also upon the establishment of a camp of twenty thousand men on the

Rhine frontier. With the latter there had been coupled a warning,

threatening with death all who should spend any time abroad, and

engage in any armed movement against their own country.

To both these decrees Louis refused his sanction; both he vetoed on

the 20th of June, 1792.

The populace, which thronged the doors of the National Assembly in

immense masses, among whom the emissaries of revolution had been

very active, received the news of the king's veto with a howl of

rage. The storm-birds of revolution flew through the streets, and

shouted into all the windows: "The country is in danger! The king

has been making alliances abroad. The Austrian woman wants to summon

the armies of her own land against France, and therefore the king

has vetoed the decree which punishes the betrayers of their country.

A curse on M. Veto! Down with Madame Veto! That is the cry to-day

for the revolutionary party. A curse on M. Veto! Down with Madame

Veto!"

The watch-cry rolled like a peal of thunder through all the streets

and into all the houses; and, while within their closed doors, and

in the stillness of their own homes, the well-disposed praised the

king for having the courage to protect the priests and the emigres,

the evil-disposed bellowed out their curses through all the streets,

and called upon the rabble to avenge themselves upon Monsieur and

Madame Veto.

Nobody prevented this. The National Assembly let every thing go

quietly on, and waited with perfect indifference to see what the

righteous anger of the people should resolve to do.

Immense masses of howling, shrieking people rolled up, on the

afternoon of the 20th of June, to the Tuileries, where no

arrangements had been made for defence, the main entrances not even

being protected that day by the National Guard.

The king gave orders, therefore, that the great doors should be

opened, and the people allowed to pass in unhindered.

In a quarter of an hour all the staircases, corridors, and halls

were filled by a howling, roaring crowd; the room of the king alone

was locked, and in this apartment were the royal family and a few

faithful friends--the king, bland and calm as ever; the queen, pale,

firm, uncomplaining; Madame Elizabeth, with folded hands, praying;

the two children drawing closely together, softly weeping, and yet

suppressing their sobs, because the queen had, in a whisper,

commanded them to keep still.

A little company of faithful servants filled the background of the

room, and listened with suspended breath to the axe-strokes with

which the savage crowd broke down the doors, and heard the

approaching cries of the multitude.

At last a division of the National Guard reached the palace, too

late to drive the people out, but perhaps in season to protect the

royal family. The door of the royal apartment was opened to the

second officer of the National Guard, M. Acloque. He burst in, and

kneeling before the king, conjured him, with tears in his eyes, to

show himself to the people, and by his presence to calm the savage

multitude.

By this time the two children were no longer able to control their

feelings and suppress their fear. The dauphin burst into tears and

loud cries; he clung affrighted to the dress of his mother; he

implored her with the most moving tones to take him away, and go

with him to his room. Marie Antoinette stooped down to the poor

little fellow, and pressed him and Theresa, who was weeping calmly,

to her heart, whispering a few quieting words into their ears.

While the mother was comforting her children, Louis, yielding to

Acloque's entreaties, had left the room, in order to show himself to

the people. Madame Elizabeth, his sister, followed him through the

corridor into the great hall, passing through the seething crowd,

which soon separated her from the king. Pushed about on all sides,

Madame Elizabeth could not follow, and was now alone in the throng,

accompanied only by her equerry, M. Saint-Pardoux. Armed men pressed

up against the princess, and horrid cries surged around her.

"There is the Austrian woman!" and at once all pikes, all weapons

were directed against the princess.

"For God's sake!" cried M. de Saint Pardoux, "what do you want to

do? This is not the queen!"

"Why do you undeceive them?" asked Madame Elizabeth, "their error

might save the queen!"

And while she put back one of the bayonets directed against her

breast, she said, gently: "Take care, sir, you might wound somebody,

and I am convinced that you would be sorry."

The people were amazed at this, and respectfully made way for her to

come up with the king. He stood in the middle of the hall,

surrounded by a crowd threatening him with wild curses. One of these

desperadoes pressed close up to the king, while the others were

shouting that they must strangle the whole royal family, and,

pulling a bottle and a glass out of his pocket, he filled the

latter, gave it to the king, and ordered him to drink to the welfare

of the nation.

The king quietly took the glass. "The nation must know that I love

it," said he, "for I have made many sacrifices for it. From the

bottom of my heart I drink to its welfare," and, in spite of the

warning cries of his friends, he put the glass to his lips and

emptied it.

The crowd was beside itself with delight, and their cries were

answered from without by the demand of the bloodthirsty rabble--"How

soon are you going to throw out the heads of the king and the

queen?"

Marie Antoinette had meanwhile succeeded in pacifying the dauphin.

She raised herself up, and when she saw that the king had gone out,

she started toward the door.

Her faithful friends stopped the way; they reminded her that she was

not simply a queen, that she was a mother, too. They conjured her

with tears to give ear to prudence--not to rush in vain into danger,

and imperil the king still more.

"No one shall hinder me from doing what is my duty," cried the

queen. "Leave the doorway free."

But her friends would not yield; they defied even the wrath of the

queen. At that moment, some of the National Guards came in through

another door, and pacified Marie Antoinette, assuring her that the

life of the king was not threatened.

In the mean while the shouting came nearer and nearer, the cries

resounded from the guard-room, the doors were torn open, and the

people surged in, in immense waves, like the sea lashed into fury by

the storm. The National Guards rolled a table before the queen and

her children, and placed themselves at the two sides to defend them.

Only a bit of wood now separated the queen from her enemies, who

brandished their weapons at her. But Marie Antoinette had now

regained her whole composure. She stood erect; at her right hand,

her daughter, who nestled up to her mother--at her left, the

dauphin, who, with wide-open eyes and looks of astonishment, gazed

at the people bursting in. Behind the queen were Princesses Lamballe

and Tarente, and Madame Tourzel.

A man, with dishevelled hair and bare bosom, gave the queen a

handful of rods, bearing the inscription, "For Marie Antoinette!"

Another showed her a guillotine, a third a gallows, with the

inscription, "Tremble, tyrant! thy hour has come!" Another held up

before her, on the point of a pike, a human heart dripping with

blood, and cried: "Thus shall they all bleed--the hearts of tyrants

and aristocrats!"

The queen did not let her eyes fall, her fixed look rested upon the

shrieking and howling multitude; but when this man, with the

bleeding heart, approached her, her eyelids trembled--a deathly

paleness spread over her cheeks, for she recognized him--Simon the

cobbler--and a fearful presentiment told her that this man, who had

always been for her the incarnation of hatred, is now, when her life

is threatened, to be the source of her chief peril.

From the distance surged in the cries: "Long live Santerre! Long

live the Faubourg Saint Antoine! Long live the sans-culottes!"

And at the head of a crowd of half-naked fellows, the brewer

Santerre, arrayed in the fantastic costume of a robber of the

Abruzzo Mountains, with a dagger and pistol in his girdle, dashed

into the room, his broad-brimmed hat, with three red plumes, aslant

upon his brown hair, that streamed down on both sides of his savage

countenance, like the mane of a lion.

The queen lifted the dauphin up, set him upon the table, and

whispered softly to him, he must not cry, he must not grieve, and

the child smiled and kissed his mother's hands. Just then a drunken

woman rushed up to the table, threw a red cap down upon it, and

ordered the queen, on pain of death, to put it on.

Marie Antoinette threw both her arms around the dauphin, kissed his

auburn hair, and turned calmly to General de Wittgenhofen, who stood

near her.

"Put the cap upon me," said she, and the women howled with pleasure,

while the general, pale with rage and trembling with grief, obeyed

the queen's command, and put the red cap upon that hair which

trouble had already turned gray in a night.

But, after a minute, General Wittgenhofen took the red cap from the

head of the queen, and laid it on the table.

From all sides resounded thus the commanding cry: "The red cap for

the dauphin! The tri-color for Little Veto!" And the women tore

their three-colored ribbons from their caps and threw them upon the

table.

"If you love the nation," cried the women to the queen, "put the red

cap on your son."

The queen motioned to Madame Tourzel, who put the red cap on the

dauphin, and decked his neck and arms with the ribbons. The child

did not understand whether it was a joke or a way of insulting him,

and looked on with a smile of astonishment.

Santerre leaned over the table and looked complacently at the

singular group. The proud and yet gentle face of the queen was so

near him, that when he saw the sweat-drops rolling down from beneath

the woollen cap over the dauphin's forehead, even he felt a touch of

pity, and, straightening himself up, perhaps to escape the eye of

the queen, he called out, roughly: "Take that cap off from that

child; don't you see how he sweats?"

The queen thanked him with a mute glance, and took the cap herself

from the head of the poor child.

At this point a horde of howling women pressed up to the table, and

threatened the queen with their fists, and hurled wild curses at

her.

"Only see how proudly and scornfully this Austrian looks at us!"

cried a young woman, who stood in the front rank." She would like to

blast us with her eyes, for she hates us."

Marie Antoinette turned kindly to them: "Why should I hate you?" she

asked, in gentle tones. "It is you that hate me--you. Have I ever

done you any harm?"

"Not to me," answered the young woman, "not to me, but to the

nation."

"Poor child!" answered the queen, gently, "they have told you so,

and you have believed it. What advantage would it bring to me to

harm the nation? You call me the Austrian, but I am the wife of the

King of France, the mother of the dauphin. I am French with all my

feelings of wife and mother. I shall never see again the land in

which I was born, and only in France can I be happy or unhappy. And

when you loved me, I was happy there." [Footnote: The queen's own

words.--See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 106.]

She said this with quivering voice and moving tones, the tears

filling her eyes; and while she was speaking the noise was hushed,

and even these savage creatures were transformed into gentle,

sympathetic women.

Tears came to the eyes of the young woman who before had spoken so

savagely to the queen. "Forgive me," she said, weeping, "I did not

know you; now I see that you are not bad."

"No, she is not bad," cried Santerre, striking with both fists upon

the table, "but bad people have misled her," and a second time he

struck the table with his resounding blows. Marie Antoinette

trembled a little, and hastily lifting the dauphin from the table,

she put him by her side.

"Ah! madame," cried Santerre, smiling, "don't be afraid, they will

do you no harm; but just think how you have been misled, and how

dangerous it is to deceive the people. I tell you that in the name

of the people. For the rest, you needn't fear."

"I am not afraid," said Marie Antoinette, calmly; "no one need ever

be afraid who is among brave people," and with a graceful gesture

she extended her hands to the National Guards who stood by the

table.

A general shout of applause followed the words of the queen; the

National Guards covered her hands with kisses, and even the women

were touched.

"How courageous the Austrian is!" cried one. "How handsome the

prince is!" cried another, and all pressed up to get a nearer view

of the dauphin, and a smile or a look from him.

The great eyes of Santerre remained fixed upon the queen, and

resting both arms upon the table he leaned over to her until his

mouth was close by her ear.

"Madame," he whispered, "you have very unskilful friends; I know

people who would serve you better, who--"

But as if ashamed of this touch of sympathy, he stopped, sprang back

from the table, and with a thundering voice, commanded all present

to march out and leave the palace.

They obeyed his command, filed out in military order past the table,

behind which stood the queen with her children and her faithful

friends.

A rare procession, a rare army, consisting of men armed with pikes,

hatchets, and spades, of women brandishing knives and scissors in

their hands, and all directing their countenances, before hyena-like

and scornful, but now subdued and sympathetic, to the queen, who

with calm eye and gentle look responded to the salutations of the

retreating crowd with a friendly nod.

In the mean while the long-delayed help had reached the king: the

National Guards had overcome the raging multitude, and gained

possession of the great reception-room where Louis was. The mayor of

Paris, Petion, had come at last, and, hailed loudly by the crowd

which occupied the whole space in the rear of the National Guards,

he approached the king.

"Sire," said he, "I have just learned what is going on here."

"I am surprised at that," answered the king, with a reproachful

look, "the mayor of Paris ought to have learned before this about

this tumult, which has now been lasting three hours."

"But is now at an end, sire, since I have come," cried Petion,

proudly. "You have now nothing more to fear, sire."

"To fear?" replied Louis with a proud shrug. "A man who has a good

conscience does not fear. Feel," he said, taking the hand of the

grenadier who stood at his side, "lay your hand upon my heart, and

tell this man whether it beats faster." [Footnote: The king's words.

The grenadier's name whose hand the king took, was Lalanne. Later,

in the second year of "the one and indivisible republic," he was

condemned to die by the guillotine, because, as stated in the

sentence, he showed himself on the 30th of June, 1798, as a common

servant of tyranny, and boasted to other citizens that Capet took

his hand, laid it upon his heart, and said: "Feel, my friend,

whether it beats quicker."--See Hue, "Dernieres Annees de Louis

Seize," p. 180.]

Petion now turned to the people and commanded them to withdraw.

"Fellow-citizens," said he, "you began this day wisely and worthily;

you have proved that you are free. End the day as you began it.

Separate peaceably; do as I do, return to your houses, and go to

bed!" The multitude, flattered by Petion's praises, began to

withdraw, and the National Guards escorted the king into the great

council-chamber, where a deputation of the National Assembly had met

to pay their respects to the king.

"Where is the queen, where are the children?" cried the king, as,

exhausted, he sank into a chair.

His gentlemen hastened out to bring them, and soon the queen and the

children came in. With extended arms Marie Antoinette hastened to

her husband, and they remained a long time locked in their embrace.

"Papa king," cried the dauphin, "give me a kiss, too! I have

deserved it, for I was brave and did not cry when the people put the

red cap on my head."

The king stooped down to the child and kissed his golden hair, and

then pressed his little daughter, who was nestling up to him, to his

heart.

The deputies stood with curious looks around the group, to whom it

was not granted, even after such a fearful day and such imminent

peril, to embrace each other, and thank God for their preservation,

without witnesses.

"Confess, madame," said one of the deputies to Marie Antoinette, in

a confidential tone, "confess that you have experienced great

anxiety."

"No, sir," replied the queen, "I have not been anxious, but I have

suffered severely, because I was separated from the king at a moment

when his life was threatened. I had at least my children with me,

and so could discharge one of my duties."

"I will not excuse every thing that took place to-day," said the

deputy, with a shrug. "But confess at least, madame, that the people

conducted themselves very well."

"Sir, the king and I are convinced of the natural good-nature of the

people; they are only bad when they are led astray."

Some other deputies approached the dauphin, and directed various

questions to him, in order to convince themselves about his

precocious understanding that was so much talked about.

One of the gentlemen, speaking of the day that had gone by, compared

it with St. Bartholomew's night.

"The comparison does not hold," cried another: "here is no Charles

the Ninth."

"And no Catherine de Medicis either," said the dauphin, quickly,

pressing the hand of the queen to his lips.

"Oh! see the little scholar," cried the by-standers. "Let us see

whether he knows as much about geography as about history!"

And all pressed up to him, to put questions to him about the

situation and boundaries of France, and about the division of the

French territory into departments and districts. The prince answered

all these questions quickly and correctly. After every answer he

cast an inquiring glance at the queen, and when he read in her looks

that his answer had been correct, his eyes brightened, and his

cheeks glowed with pleasure.

"Our dauphin is really very learned," cried one of the deputies. "I

should like to know whether he has paid any attention yet to the

arts. Do you love music, my little prince?"

"Ah, sir," answered the dauphin, eagerly, "whoever has heard mamma

sing and play, must love music!"

"Do you sing too, prince?"

The dauphin raised his eyes to his mother. "Mamma," he asked, "shall

I sing the prayer of this morning?"

Marie Antoinette nodded. "Sing it, my son, for perhaps God heard it

this morning, and has graciously answered it."

The dauphin sank upon his knees, and folding his hands, he raised

his head and turned his blue eyes toward heaven, and, with a sweet

voice and a mild, smiling look, he sang these words:

"Ciel, entends la priere Qu'ici je fais; Conserve un si boil pere A

ses sujets." [Footnote: See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 146. This scene

is historical. Sees Hue, "Dernioree Anneesde Louis XVI." This prayer

is from the opera so much admired at that time, "Peter the Great" "O

Heaven, accept the prayer, I offer here; Unto his subjects spare My

father dear."]

A deep, solemn silence reigned while the dauphin's voice rang

through the room. The faces of the deputies, hitherto defiant and

severe, softened, deeply moved. They all looked at the beautiful

boy, who was still on his knees, his countenance beaming, and with a

smile upon it like the face of one in a blissful dream. No one

ventured to break the silence. The king, whose arm was thrown around

the neck of his daughter, looked affectionately at the dauphin;

Madame Elizabeth had folded her hands, and was praying; but Marie

Antoinette, no longer able to control her deep emotion, covered her

face with her hands, and wept in silence.

From this day the life of the royal family was one of constant

excitement--an incessant, feverish expectation of coming evil. The

king bore it all with an uncomplaining resignation; no one drew from

him a complaint, no one a reproach. But the thought never seemed to

occur to him that perhaps even yet safety might be attained by

energy, by spirit, or even by flight.

He had surrendered all; he was ready to suffer as a Christian

instead of rising as a king, and preferred to fall in honorable

battle rather than to live despised.

Marie Antoinette had given up her efforts to inspire her husband

with her own energetic will. She knew that all was in vain, and had

accepted her fate. Since she could not live as a queen, she would at

least die as one. She made her preparations for this calmly and with

characteristic decision. "They will kill me, I know," she said to

her maids. "I have only one duty left me, to prepare myself to die!"

She lost her accustomed spirit, wept much, and exhibited a great

deal of feeling. Yet she still stood guard over the shattered throne

like a resolute sentinel, and looked around with sharp and searching

glances, to keep an eye on the enemy, and to be ready for his nearer

approach.

She still continued to receive news about every thing that

transpired in Paris, every thing that was resolved upon in the

National Assembly and discussed in the clubs, and had the libels and

pamphlets which were directed at her all sent to her. Marie

Antoinette understood the condition of the capital and the feeling

of the people better than did the king (who often sat for hours, and

at times whole days, silent and unoccupied) better even than did the

ministers. She received every morning the reports of the emissaries,

followed the intrigues of the conspirators, and was acquainted with

the secret assemblies which Marat called together, and the alliances

of the clubs. She knew about the calling together of the forty-eight

sections of the Paris "fraternity" in one general convention. She

knew that Potion, Danton, and Manuel, three raving republicans, were

at the head, and that their emissaries were empowered to stir up the

suburbs of the city. She knew, too, that the monsters from

Marseilles, who had been active on the 20th of June, were boasting

that they were going to repeat the deeds of that day on a greater

scale.

Nor was it unknown to her that more than half the deputies in the

National Assembly belonged to the Jacobin party, and that they were

looking for an opportunity to strike a fresh blow at royalty. Very

often, when at dead of night Marie Antoinette heard the noisy chorus

of the rioters from Marseilles singing beneath her windows,

"Allons, enfants de la patrie," or the Parisians chanting the "Qa

ira, fa ira!" she sprang from her bed (she now never disrobed

herself on retiring), hurried to the beds of her children to see

that they were not in danger, or called her maids and commanded them

to light the candles, that they might at least see the danger which

threatened.

At last, on the night of the 9th of August, the long-feared terror

arrived.

A gun fired in the court of the Tuileries announced its advent.

Marie Antoinette sprang from her bed, and sent her waiting-maid to

the king to waken him. The king had already risen; his ministers and

a few tried friends were now with him. The queen wakened her

children, and assisted in dressing them. She then went with the

little ones to the king, who received them with an affectionate

greeting. At length a blast of trumpets announced that the movement

had become general; the thunder of cannon and the peals of bells

awakened the sleeping city.

The royal family, crowded close together, silently awaited the

stalking of the republic into the halls of the king's palace, or the

saving of the monarchy by the grace of God and the bravery of their

faithful friends. For even then monarchy had those who were true to

it; and while the trumpet-blasts continued and the bells to ring, to

awaken republicans to the struggle, the sounds were at the same time

the battle-cry of the royalists, and told them, that the king was in

danger and needed their help.

About two hundred noblemen had remained in Paris, and had not

followed the royal princes to Coblentz to take arms against their

own country. They had remained in Paris, in order to defend the

monarchy to the last drop of their blood, and at least to be near

the throne, if they were not able to hold it up longer. In order not

to be suspected, they carried no arms, and yet it was known that

beneath the silk vest of the cavalier they concealed the dagger of

the soldier, and they received in consequence the appellation of

"Chevaliers of the Dagger."

At the first notes of the trumpet the nobility had hurried on the

night of the 10th of August to the Tuileries, which were already

filled with grenadiers, Swiss guards, and volunteers of every rank,

who had hastened thither to protect the royal family. All the

staircases, all the corridors and rooms, were occupied by them.

The "Chevaliers of the Dagger" marched in solemn procession by them

all to the grand reception-room, where were the king, the queen, and

the children. With respectful mien they approached the royal pair,

imploring the king's permission to die for him, and beseeching the

queen to touch their weapons, in order to make them victorious, and

to allow them to kiss the royal hand, in order to sweeten death for

them. There were cries of enthusiasm and loyalty on all sides, "Long

live the king of our fathers!" cried the young people. "Long live

the king of our children!" cried the old men, taking the dauphin in

their arms and raising him above their heads, as if he were the

living banner in whose defence they wished to die.

As the morning dawned, the king, at the pressing request of his

wife, walked with her and the children through the halls and

galleries of the palace, to reanimate the courage of their defenders

who were assembled there, and to thank them for their fidelity.

Everywhere the royal family was received with enthusiasm, everywhere

oaths of loyalty to death resounded through the rooms. The king then

went, accompanied by a few faithful friends, down into the park, to

review the battalions of the National Guard who were stationed

there.

When Louis appeared, the cry, "Long live the king!" began to lose

the unanimity which had characterized it in the palace. It was

suppressed and overborne by a hostile murmur, and the farther the

king advanced, the louder grew these mutterings; till at last, from

hundreds and hundreds of throats, the thundering cry resounded,

"Abdication or death! Long live Petion! Resignation or death!"

The king turned hastily around, and, with pale face and forehead

covered with drops of cold sweat, he returned to the palace.

"All is lost!" cried the queen, bitterly, "Nothing more remains for

us than to die worthily."

But soon she raised herself up again, and new courage animated her

soul, when she saw that new defenders were constantly pressing into

the hall, and that even many grenadiers of the National Guard

mingled in the ranks of the nobility.

But these noblemen, these "Chevaliers of the Dagger," excited

mistrust, and a major of the National Guard demanded their removal

with a loud voice.

"No," cried the queen, eagerly, "these noblemen are our best

friends. Place them before the mouth of the cannon, and they will

show you how death for one's king is met. Do not disturb yourselves

about these brave people,"

She continued, turning to some grenadiers who were approaching her,

"your interests and theirs are common.

Every thing that is dearest to you and them-wives, children,

property-depends upon your courage and your common bravery."

The grenadiers extended their hands to the chevaliers, and mutual

oaths were exchanged to die for the royal family, to save the throne

or to perish with it. It was a grand and solemn moment, full of

lofty eloquence! The hearts of these noblemen and these warriors

longed impatiently for death. With their hands laid upon their

weapons, they awaited its coming.

The populace rolled up in great masses to the palace. "Wild shrieks

were heard, the thunder of cannon, the harsh cries of women, and the

yells of men. Within the palace they listened with suspended breath.

The queen straightened herself up, grasped with a quick movement the

hands of her children, drew them to herself, and, with head bent

forward and with breathless expectation, gazed at the door, like a

lioness awaiting her enemy, and making herself ready to defend her

young with her own life.

The door was suddenly opened, and the attorney-general Roderer burst

in.

"Sire," cried he, with impassioned utterance, "you must save

yourself! All opposition is vain. Only the smallest part of the

National Guard is still to be trusted, and even this part only waits

the first pretext to fraternize with the populace. The cannoneers

have already withdrawn the loading from the cannon, because they are

unwilling to fire upon the people. The king has no time to lose.

Sire, there is protection for you only in the National Assembly, and

only the representatives of the people can now protect the royal

family."

The queen uttered a cry of anger and horror. "How!" she cried. "What

do you say? We seek protection with our worst enemies? Never, oh,

never! Rather will I be nailed to these walls, than leave the palace

to go to the National Assembly!" [Footnote: The queen's own words.--

See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 90.]

And turning to the king, who stood silent and undecided, she spoke

to him with flaming words, with glowing eloquence, addressed him as

the father of the dauphin, the successor of Henry IV. and Louis

XIV., sought to animate his ambition and touch his heart, and tried

for the last time to kindle him with her courage and her decision.

In vain, all in vain. The king remained silent and undecided. A cry,

one single cry of grief, burst from the lips of the queen, and one

moment her head sank upon her breast.

"Hasten, hasten, sire!" cried Roderer, "every moment increases the

peril. In a quarter of an hour perhaps the queen and the children

will be lost beyond remedy!"

These words awakened the king from his reverie. He looked up and

nodded his head. "We can do nothing else," he said. "Let us go at

once to the National Assembly."

"Sir," cried the queen, turning to Roderer, "is it true that we are

deserted by all?"

"Madame," answered the attorney-general, sadly, "all opposition is

in vain, it will only increase the danger. Would you suffer

yourself, the king, your children, and friends, to be killed?"

"God forbid it! Would that I alone could be the offering!"

"Another minute," urged Roderer, "perhaps another second, and it is

impossible to guarantee your life, and perhaps that of your husband

and children."

"My children!" cried the queen, throwing her arms around them, and

drawing them to her breast. "No, oh no, I will not give them over to

the knife!"

One sigh, one last sob, burst from her lips, and then she released

herself from the children, and approached the king and his

ministers.

"This is the last sacrifice," she said, heavily, "that I can offer.

I submit myself, M. Roderer," and then with louder tones, as if she

wanted to call all present to be witnesses, she continued, "will you

pledge yourself for the person of the king, and for that of my son?"

"Madame," answered Roderer, solemnly, "I pledge myself for this,

that we are all ready to die at your side. That is all that I can

promise."

And now the noblemen and the grenadiers pressed up to take the king

and queen in their escort.

"For God's sake," cried Roderer, "no demonstration, or the king is

lost!

"Remain, my friends," said the king, stolidly, "await our return

here."

"We shall soon return," said Marie Antoinette; and leading her two

children, she followed the king, who walked slowly through the hall.

Princess Lamballe and Madame Tourzel brought up the rear.

It was done. The dying monarchy left the royal palace to put itself

under the protection of the revolution, which was soon to give birth

to the republic.

It was six o'clock in the morning when the royal family crossed the

threshold of the Tuileries--in front the king, conducting Princess

Elizabeth on his arm, behind him the queen with the two children.

Before leaving the palace, the king received tidings that a part of

the National Guard had withdrawn, in order to protect their families

and their property from an attack of the populace, and that another

part had declared, itself against the king and in favor of the

revolution.

Louis made his way through the seething crowd that scarcely opened

to allow a free passage for the royal family, and overwhelmed them

with curses, insults, and abuse.

Some members of the National Assembly went in advance, and could

themselves scarcely control the raging waves of popular fury.

On the Terrace des Feuillants the people shouted, "Down with the

tyrants! To death, to death with them!"

The dauphin cried aloud with fright, for the bloody hands of two

yelling women were extended after him. A grenadier sprang forward,

seized the boy with his strong arm, and raised him upon his

shoulder.

"My son, give me back my son!" cried the queen, wildly. The

grenadier bowed to her. "Do not be afraid, do you not recognize me?"

Marie Antoinette looked at him, and the hint of a smile passed over

her face. She did indeed recognize him who, like a good angel, was

always present when danger and death threatened her. It was Toulan,

the faithful one, by her side in the uniform of a National

Guardsman.

"Courage, courage, good queen, the demons are loose, but good angels

are near thee too; and where those curse and howl, these bring

blessing and reconciliation."

"Down with the tyrants!" roared the savage women.

"Do not be afraid, my prince," said the grenadier, to the dauphin

whom he carried upon his shoulder, in order to protect him from the

thronging of the crowd. "Nobody will hurt you."

"Not me, but my dear papa," sobbed the child, while the tears rolled

over his pale cheeks.

The poor child trembled and was afraid, and how could he help it?

Even the king was terrified for a moment, and felt as if the tears

were coming into his eyes. The queen too wept, dried her tears, and

then wept again. The sad march consumed more than an hour, in order

to traverse the bit of way to the Manege, where the National

Assembly met. Before the doors of this building the cries were

doubled; the attorney-general harangued the mob, and sought to quiet

it, and pushed the royal family into the narrow corridor, in which,

hemmed in by abusive crowds, they made their way forward slowly. At

last the hall doors opened, and as Marie Antoinette passed in behind

the king, Toulan gave the little dauphin to her, who flung both his

arms around the neck of his mother.

A death-like silence reigned in the hall. The deputies looked with

dark faces at the new-comers. No one rose to salute the king, no

word of welcome was spoken.

The king took his place by the side of the president, the queen and

her ladies took the chairs of the ministers. Then came an angry cry

from the tribune: "The dauphin must sit with the king, he belongs to

the nation. The Austrian has no claim to the confidence of the

people."

An officer came down to take the child away, but Louis Charles clung

to his mother, fear was expressed on his features, tears stood in

his eyes, and won a word of sympathy, so that the officer did not

venture to remove the prince forcibly.

A deep silence sat in again, till the king raised his voice. "I have

come hither," he said, "to prevent a great crime, and because I

believe that I am safest surrounded by the representatives of the

nation."

"Sire," replied President Vergniaud, "you can reckon upon the

devotion of the National Assembly. It knows its duties; its members

have sworn to live and to die in defence of the rights of the people

and of the constitutional authorities."

Voices were heard at this point from all sides of the hall,

declaring that the constitution forbids the Assembly holding its

deliberations in the presence of the king and the queen.

They then took the royal family into the little low box scarcely ten

feet long, in which the reporters of the "Logograph" used to write

their accounts of the doings of the Assembly. Into this narrow space

were a king, a queen, with her sister and her children, their

ministers and faithful servants, crowded, to listen to the

discussions concerning the deposition of the king.

From without there came into the hall the wild cry of the populace

that the Swiss guards had been killed, and shouts accompanied the

heads as they were carried about on the points of pikes. The crack

of muskets was heard, and the roar of cannon. The last faithful

regiments were contending against the army of the revolutionists,

while within the hall the election by the French people of a General

Convention was discussed.

This scene lasted the whole day; the whole day the queen sat in the

glowing heat, her son asleep in her lap, motionless, and like a

marble statue. She appeared to be alive only when once in a while a

sigh or a faint moan escaped her. A glass of water mixed with

currant-juice was the only nourishment she took through the day.

At about five in the afternoon, while the Assembly was still

deliberating about the disposal of the king, Louis turned composedly

around to the valet who was standing back of him.

"I am hungry," he said; "bring me something to eat!" Hue hastened to

bring, from a restaurant near by, a piece of roast chicken, some

fruit and stewed plums; a small table was procured, and carried into

the reporters' box of the "Logograph."

The countenance of the king lightened up a little, as he sat down at

the table and ate his dinner with a good appetite. He did not hear

the suppressed sobs that issued from a dark corner of the box. To

this corner the unhappy woman had withdrawn, who yesterday was Queen

of France, and whose pale cheeks reddened with shame at this hour to

see the king eating with his old relish!

The tears started afresh from her eyes, and, in order to dry them,

she asked for a handkerchief, for her own was already wet with her

tears, and with the sweat which she had wiped from the forehead of

her sleeping boy. But no one of her friends could reach her a

handkerchief that was not red with the blood of those who had been

wounded in the defence of the queen!

It was only at two o'clock in the night that the living martyrdom of

this session ended, and the royal family were conducted to the cells

of the former Convent des Feuillants, which was above the rooms of

the Assembly, and which had hastily been put in readiness for the

night quarters of the royal family. Hither armed men, using their

gun-barrels as candlesticks for the tapers which they carried,

marched, conducting a king and a queen to their improvised sleeping-

rooms. A dense crowd of people, bearing weapons, surrounded them,

and often closed the way, so that it needed the energetic command of

the officer in charge to make a free passage for them. The populace

drew back, but bellowed and sang into the ears of the queen as she

passed by:

"Madame Veto avait promis D'fegorger tout Paris."

These horrible faces, these threatening, abusive voices, frightened

the dauphin, who clung tremblingly to his mother. Marie Antoinette

stooped down to him and whispered a few words in his ear. At once

the countenance of the boy brightened, and he sprang quickly and

joyfully up the staircase; but at the top he stood still, and waited

for his sister, who was so heavy with sleep that she had to be led

slowly up. "Listen, Theresa," said the prince, joyously, "mamma has

promised me that I shall sleep in her room with her, because I was

so good before the bad people. " [Footnote: Goncourt.--"Histoirede

Marie Antoinette," p. 234.] And he jumped about delightedly into the

rooms which had been opened, and in which a supper had been even

prepared. But suddenly, his countenance darkened, and his eyes

wandered around with an anxious look.

"Where is Moufflet?" he asked. "He came with me, and he was with me

when we left the box. Moufflet, Moufflet, where are you, Moufflet?"

and asking this question loudly, the dauphin hurried through the

four rooms everywhere seeking after the little dog, the inheritance

from his brother, the former Dauphin of France.

But Moufflet did not come, and all search was in vain; no Moufflet

was to be found. He had probably been lost in the crowd, or been

trodden under foot.

When at last silence and peace came, and the royal family were

resting on their hard beds, sighs and suppressed sobs were heard

from where the dauphin lay. It was the little fellow weeping for his

lost dog. The heir of the kings of France had to-day lost his last

possession--his little, faithful dog.

Marie Antoinette stooped down and kissed his wet eyes.

"Do not cry, my boy; Moufflet will come back again tomorrow."

"To-morrow! certainly, mamma?"

"Certainly."

The boy dried his tears, and went to sleep with a smile upon his

lips.

But Marie Antoinette did not sleep; sitting erect in her bed, she

listened to the cries and fiendish shoutings which came up from the

terrace of the Feuillants, as the people heaped their abuses upon

her, and demanded her head.

On the next day new sufferings! The royal family had to go again

into the little box which they had occupied the day before; they had

to listen to the deliberation of the National Assembly about the

future residence of the royal family, which had made itself unworthy

to inhabit the Tuileries, while even the Luxemburg palace was no

suitable residence for Monsieur and Madame Veto.

The queen had in the mean time regained her self-possession and

calmness, she could even summon a smile to her lips with which to

greet her children and the faithful friends who thronged around her

in order to be near her in these painful hours. She was pleased with

the attentions of the wife of the English ambassador, Lady

Sutherland, who sent linen and clothes of her own son for the

dauphin. The queen also received from Madame Tourzel her watch with

many thanks, since she had been robbed of her own and her purse on

the way to the Convent des Feuillants.

On receiving news of this theft, the five gentlemen present hastened

to lay all the gold and notes that they carried about them on the

table before they withdrew. But Marie Antoinette had noticed this.

"Gentlemen," she said, with thanks and deep feeling, "gentlemen,

keep your money; you will want it more than we, for you will, I

trust, live longer." [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See

"Beauehesne," vol. i., p. 806.]

Death had no longer any terrors for the queen, for she had too often

looked him in the eye of late to be afraid. She had with joy often

seen him take away her faithful servants and friends. Death would

have been lighter to bear than the railings and abuse which she had

to experience upon her walks from the Logograph's reporters' seat to

the rooms in the Convent des Feuillants. On one of these walks she

saw in the garden some respectably dressed people standing and

looking without hurling insults at her.--Full of gratitude, the

queen smiled and bowed to them. On this, one of the men shouted:

"You needn't take the trouble to shake your head so gracefully, for

you won't have it much longer!"

"I would the man were right!" said Marie Antoinette softly, going on

to the hall of the Assembly to hear the representatives of the

nation discuss the question whether the Swiss guards, who had

undertaken to defend the royal family with weapons in their hands,

should not be condemned to death as traitors to the French nation.

At length, after five days of continued sufferings, the Assembly

became weary of insulting and humiliating longer those who had been

robbed of their power and dignity; and it was announced to the royal

family that they would hereafter reside in the Temple, and be

perpetual prisoners of the nation.

On the morning of the 18th of August two great carriages, each drawn

by only two horses, stood in the court des Feuillants ready to carry

the royal family to the Temple. In the first of these sat the king,

the queen, their two children, Madame Elizabeth, Princess Lamballe,

Madame Tourzel and her daughter; and besides these, Potion the mayor

of Paris, the attorney-general, and a municipal officer. In the

second carriage were the servants of the king and two officials. A

detachment of the National Guards escorted the carriages, on both

sides of which dense masses of men stood, incessantly pouring out

their abuse and insults.

In the Place Vendome the procession stopped, and with scornful

laughter they showed the king the scattered fragments, upon the

pavements, of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV., which had stood

there, and which had been thrown from its pedestal by the anger of

the people. "So shall it be with all tyrants!" shouted and roared

the mob, raising their fists threateningly.

"How bad they are!" said the dauphin, looking with widely-opened

eyes at the king, between whose knees he was standing.

"No," answered Louis, gently, "they are not bad, they are only

misled."

At seven in the evening they reached the gloomy building which was

now to be the home of the King and Queen of France. "Long live the

nation!" roared the mob, which filled the inner court as Marie

Antoinette and her husband dismounted from the carriage. "Long live

the nation!--down with the tyrants!" The queen paid no attention to

the cries; she looked down at her black shoe, which was torn, and

out of whose tip her white silk stocking peeped. "See," she said, to

Princess Lamballe, who was walking by her side, "see my foot, it

would hardly be believed that the Queen of France has no shoes."

CHAPTER XX.

TO THE 21ST 0F JANUARY.

"We must look misfortune directly in the eye, and have courage to

bear it worthily," said Marie Antoinette." "We are prisoners, and

shall long remain so! Let us seek to have a kind of household life

even in our prison. Let us make a fixed plan how to spend our days."

"You are right, Marie," replied Louis; "let us arrange how to spend

each day. As I am no longer a king, I will be the teacher of my son,

and try to educate him to be a good king."

"Do you believe, then, husband, that there are to be kings after

this in France?" asked Marie Antoinette, with a shrug.

"Well," answered Louis, "we will at least seek to give him such an

education that he shall be able to fill worthily whatever station he

may be called to. I will be his teacher in the sciences."

"And I will interest him and our daughter in music and drawing,"

said the queen.

"And you will allow me to teach my niece to embroider an altar-

cover," said Madame Elizabeth.

"And in the evening," said Marie Antoinette, nodding playfully to

Princess Lamballe, "in the evening we will read comedies, that the

children may learn of our Lamballe the art of declamation. We will

seek to forget the past, and turn our thoughts only to the present,

whatever it may be. You see that these four days that we have spent

here in the Temple have been good schoolmasters for me, and have

made me patient, and--but what is that?" exclaimed the queen; "did

you not hear steps before the door? It must be something unusual,

for it is not yet so late as the officials are accustomed to come.

Where are the children?"

And, in the anxiety of her motherly love, the queen hastened up the

little staircase which led to the second story of the Temple, where

was the chamber of the dauphin, together with the general sitting-

room.

Louis Charles sprang forward to meet his mother, and asked her

whether she had come to fulfil her promise, and go out with him into

the garden. The queen, instead of answering, clasped him in her

arms, and beckoned to Theresa to come to her side. "Oh! my children,

my dear children, I only wanted to see you; I--"

The door opened, and the king, followed by his sister, Princess

Lamballe, and Madame Tourzel, entered.

"What is it?" cried Marie Antoinette. "Some new misfortune, is it

not?"

She was silent, for she now became aware of the presence of both of

the municipal officials, who had come in behind the ladies, and in

whose presence she would not complain. Manuel, who, since the 10th

of August, had been attorney-general--Manuel, the enemy of the

queen, the chief supervisor of the prisoners in the Temple, was

there--and Marie Antoinette would not grant him the triumph of

seeing her weakness.

"You have something to say to us, sir," said the queen, with a voice

which she compelled to be calm.

Yes, Manuel had something to say to her. He had to lay before her

and the king a decree of the National Assembly, which ordered old

parties who had accompanied "Louis Capet and his wife" to the

Temple, either under the name of friends or servants, to leave the

place at once. The queen had not a word of complaint, but her pride

was vanquished; she suffered Manuel to see her tears. She extended

her arms, and called the faithful Lamballe to her, mingled her tears

with those of the princess, and then gave a parting kiss to Madame

de Tourzel and her daughter.

The evening of that day was a silent and solitary one in the rooms

of the Temple. Their last servants had been taken away from the

royal prisoners, and only Clery, the valet of the king, had been

suffered to remain, to wait upon his master. The next morning,

however, Manuel came to inform the queen that she would be allowed

to have two other women to wait upon her, and gave her a list of

names from which she might choose. But Marie Antoinette, with proud

composure, refused to accept this offer. "We have been deprived of

those who remained faithful to us out of love, and devoted their

services to us as a free gift, and we will not supply their places

by servants who are paid by our enemies."

"Then you will have to wait upon yourselves," cried Manuel, with a

harsh voice.

"Yes," answered the queen, gently, "we will wait upon ourselves, and

take pleasure in it."

And they did wait upon themselves; they took the tenderest care one

of another, and performed all these offices with constant readiness.

The king had, happily, been allowed to retain his valet, who dressed

him, who knew all his quiet, moderate ways, and who arranged every

thing for the king in the little study at the Temple, as he had been

accustomed to do in the grand cabinet at Versailles. The ladies

waited upon themselves, and Marie Antoinette undertook the task of

dressing and undressing the dauphin.

The little fellow was the sunbeam which now and then would light up

even the sombre apartments of the Temple. With the happy

carelessness of infancy, he had forgotten the past, and did not

think of the future; he lived only in the present, sought to be

happy, and found his happiness when he succeeded in calling a smile

to the pale, proud lips of the queen, or in winning a word of praise

from the king for his industry and his attention.

And thus the days went by with the royal family-monotonous, sad, and

dreary. No greeting of love, no ray of hope came in from the outer

world, to lighten up the thick walls of the old building. No one

brought the prisoners news of what was transpiring without. They

were too well watched for any of their friends to be able to

communicate with them. This was the greatest trial for the royal

captives. Not a moment, by day or by night, when the eyes of the

sentries were not directed toward them, and their motions observed!

The doors to the anterooms were constantly open, and in them always

there were officials, with searching looks and with severe faces,

watching the prisoners in the inner rooms. Even during the night

this trial did not cease, and the Queen of France had to undergo the

indignity of having the door of her sleeping-room constantly open,

while the officials, who spent the night in their arm-chairs in the

anteroom, drank, played, and smoked, always keeping an eye on her

bed, in order to be sure of her presence.

Even when she undressed herself, the doors of the queen's apartment

were not closed; a mere small screen stood at the foot of the bed;

this was removed as soon as the queen had disrobed and lain down.

This daily renewed pain and humiliation--this being watched every

minute--was the heaviest burden that the prisoners of the Temple had

to bear, and the proud heart of Marie Antoinette rose in

exasperation every day against these restraints. She endeavored to

be patient and to choke the grief that rose within her, and yet she

must sometimes give expression to it in tears and threatening words,

which now fell like cold thunderbolts from the lips of the queen,

and no longer kindled any thing, no longer dashed any thing in

pieces.

Thus August passed and September began, sad, gloomy, and hopeless.

On the morning of the 3d of September, Manuel came to the royal

prisoners, to tell them that Paris was in great excitement, and that

they were not to go into the garden that day as usual about noon,

but were to remain in their rooms.

"How is it with my friend, Princess Lamballe?" asked Marie

Antoinette.

Manuel was perplexed; he even blushed and cast down his eyes, as he

answered that that morning the princess had been taken to the prison

La Force. Then, in order to divert conversation from this channel,

Manuel told the prisoners about the tidings which had recently

reached Paris, and had thrown the city into such excitement and

rage.

The neighboring powers had made an alliance against France. The King

of Prussia was advancing with a powerful army, and had already

confronted the French force before Chalons, while the Emperor of

Germany was marching against Alsace. Marie Antoinette forgot the

confusion and perplexity which Manuel had exhibited, in the

importance of this news. She hoped again; she found in her elastic

spirit support in these tidings, and began to think of the

possibility of escape. It did not trouble her that beneath her

windows she heard a furious cry, as the crowd surged up to the

prison walls: "The head of the Austrian! Give us the head of the

Austrian!" She had so often heard that--it had been so long the

daily refrain to the sorrowful song of riot which filled Paris--that

it had lost all meaning for Marie Antoinette.

Nor did it disturb her at all that she heard the loud beatings of

drums approaching like muffled thunder, that trumpets were blown,

that musketry rattled, and loud war cries resounded in the distant

streets.

Marie Antoinette paid no heed to this. She heard constantly ringing

before her ear Manuel's words: "The neighboring nations have allied

against France. The King of Prussia is before Chalons. The Emperor

of Germany is advancing upon Strasburg." "0 God of Heaven, be

merciful to us! Grant to our friends victory over our enemies.

Release us from these sufferings and pains, that our children may at

least find the happiness which for us is buried forever in the

past."

And yet Marie Antoinette could speak to no one of her hopes and

fears. She must breathe her prayer in her own heart alone, for the

municipal officials were there, and the two servants who had been

forced upon the prisoners, Tison and his wife, the paid servants of

their enemies.

Only the brave look and the clearer brow told the king of the hopes

and wishes of his wife, but he responded to them with a faint shrug

and a sad smile.

All at once, after the royal family had sat down to take their

dinner at the round table--all at once there was a stir in the

building which was before so still. Terrible cries were heard, and

steps advancing up the staircase. The two officials, who were

sitting in the open anteroom, stood and listened at the door. This

was suddenly opened, and a third official entered, pale, trembling

with rage, and raising his clinched fists tremblingly against the

king.

"The enemy is in Verdun," cried he. "We shall all be undone, but you

shall be the first to suffer!"

The king looked quietly at him; but the dauphin, terrified at the

looks of the angry man and his loud voice, burst into a violent fit

of weeping and sobbing, and Marie Antoinette and the little Theresa

strove in vain to quiet the little fellow by gentle words.

A fourth official now entered, and whispered secretly to his

colleagues.

"Is my family no longer in safety here?" asked the king.

The official shrugged his shoulders. "The report has gone abroad

that the royal family is no longer in the Temple. This has excited

the people, and they desire that you all show yourselves at the

windows, but we will not permit it; you shall not show yourselves.

The public must have more confidence in its servants."

"Yes," cried the other official, still raising his fists--"yes, that

it must; but if the enemy come, the royal family shall die!"

And when at these words the dauphin began to cry aloud again, he

continued: "I pity the poor little fellow, but die he must!"

Meanwhile the cries outside were still louder, and abusive epithets

were distinctly heard directed at the queen. A fifth official then

came in, followed by some soldiers, in order to assure themselves,

in the name of the people, that the Capet family was still in the

tower. This official demanded, in an angry voice, that they should

go to the window and show themselves to the people.

"No, no, they shall not do it," cried the other functionaries.

"Why not?" asked the king. "Come, Marie."

He extended his hand to her, and advanced with her to the window.

"No, don't do it!" cried the official, rushing to the window.

"Why not?" asked the king, in astonishment.

"Well," cried the man, with threatening fist, "the people want to

show you the head of Lamballe, that you may see how the nation takes

vengeance on its tyrants."

At that same instant there arose behind the window-pane a pale head

encircled with long, fair hair, the livid forehead sprinkled with

blood, the eyes lustreless and fixed--the head of Princess Lamballe,

which the people had dressed by a friseur, to hoist it upon a pike

and show it to the queen.

The queen had seen it; staggering she fell back upon a chair; she

gazed fixedly at the window, even after the fearful phantom had

disappeared. Her lips were open, as if for a cry which had been

silenced by horror. She did not weep, she did not complain, and even

the caresses of the children, the gentle address of Princess

Elizabeth, and the comforting words of the king could not rouse her

out of this stupefying of her whole nature.

Princess Lamballe had been murdered, and deep in her soul the queen

saw that this was only the prelude to the fearful tragedy, in which

her family would soon be implicated.

Poor Princess Lamballe! She had been killed because she had refused

to repeat the imprecations against the queen, which they tried to

extort from her lips: "Swear that you love liberty and equality;

swear that you hate the king, the queen, and every thing pertaining

to royalty."

"I will swear to the first," was the princess's answer, "but to the

last I cannot swear, for it does not lie in my heart."

This was the offence of the princess, that hate did not lie in her

heart--the offence of so many others who were killed on that 3d of

September, that dreadful day on which the hordes of Marseilles

opened the prisons, in order to drag the prisoners before the

tribunals, or to execute them without further sentence.

The days passed by, and they had to be borne. Marie Antoinette had

regained her composure and her proud calmness. She had to overcome

even this great grief, and the heart of the queen had not yet been

broken. She still loved, she still hoped. She owed it to her husband

and children not to despair, and better days might come even yet.

"We must keep up courage," she said, "to live till the dawn of this

better day."

And it required spirit to bear the daily torture of this life!

Always exposed to scorn and abuse! Always watched by the eyes of

mocking, reviling men! Always scrutinized by Madame Tison, her

servant, who followed every one of her motions as a cat watches its

prey, and among all these sentinels the most obnoxious of all was

the cobbler Simon.

Commissioned by the authorities to supervise the workmen and masons

who were engaged in restoring the partially ruined ancient portion

of the Temple, Simon had made himself at home within the building,

to discharge his duties more comfortably. It was his pleasure to

watch this humiliated royal family, to see them fall day by day, and

hear the curses that accompanied them at every step. He never

appeared in their presence without insulting them, and encouraging

with loud laughter those who imitated him in this.

Some of the officials in charge never spoke excepting with dreadful

abuse of the king, the queen, and the children.

One of them cried to his comrade in presence of Marie Antoinette:

"If the hangman does not guillotine this accursed family, I will do

it!"

When the royal family went down to take their walk in the garden,

Santerre used to come up with a troop of soldiers. The sentries whom

they passed shouldered arms before Santerre; but as soon as he had

passed and the king came, they grounded their arms, and pretended

not to see him. In the door that led into the garden, Rocher, the

turnkey, used to stand, and take his pleasure in letting the royal

family wait before unlocking, while he blew great clouds of smoke

into their faces from his long tobacco-pipe. The National Guards who

stood in the neighborhood used to laugh at this, and hurl all sorts

of low, vile words at the princesses. Then, while the royal

prisoners were taking their walk, the cannoneers used to collect in

the allees through which they wandered, and dance to the music of

revolutionary songs which some of them sang. Sometimes the gardeners

who worked there hurried up to join them in this dance, and to

encircle the prisoners in their wild evolutions. One of these people

displayed his sickle to the king one day, and swore that he would

cut off the head of the queen with it. And when, after their sad

walk, they had returned to the Temple, they were received by the

sentinels and the turnkey with renewed insults; and, as if it were

not enough to fill the ear with this abuse, the eye too must have

its share. The vilest of expressions were written upon the walls of

the corridors which the royal party had to traverse. You might read

there: "Madame Veto will soon be dancing again. Down with the

Austrian she-wolf! The wolf's brood must be strangled. The king must

be hanged with his own ribbon!" Another time they had drawn a

gallows, on which a figure was hanging, with the expression written

beneath, "Louis taking an air-bath!"

And so, even the short walks of the prisoners were transformed into

suffering. At first the queen thought she could not bear it, and the

promenades were given up. But the pale cheeks of her daughter, the

longing looks which the dauphin cast from the closed window to the

garden, warned the mother to do what the queen found too severe a

task. She underwent the pain involved in this, she submitted

herself, and every day the royal pair took the dear children into

the garden again, and bore this unworthy treatment without

complaint, that the children might enjoy a little air and sunshine.

One day, the 21st of September, the royal family had returned from

their walk to their sitting-room. The king had taken a book and was

reading; the queen was sitting near him, engaged in some light work;

while the dauphin, with his sister Theresa, and his aunt Elizabeth,

were in the next room, and were busying each other with riddles. In

the open anteroom the two officials were sitting, their eyes fixed

upon the prisoners with a kind of cruel pleasure.

Suddenly beneath their windows were heard the loud blast of trumpets

and the rattle of drums; then followed deep silence, and amid this

stillness the following proclamation was read with a loud voice:

"The monarchy is abolished in France. All official documents will be

dated from the first year of the republic. The national seal will be

encircled by the words, 'Republic of France.' The national coat-of-

arms will be a woman sitting upon a bundle of weapons, and holding

in her hand a lance tipped with a liberty-cap."

The two officials had fixed their eyes upon the king and queen, from

whose heads the crown had just fallen. They wanted to read, with

their crafty and malicious eyes, the impression which the

proclamation had made upon them. But those proud, calm features

disclosed nothing. Not for a moment did the king raise his eyes from

the book which he was reading, while the voice without uttered each

word with fearful distinctness. The queen quietly went on with her

embroidery, and not for a moment did she intermit the regular motion

of her needle.

Again the blast of trumpets and the rattle of drums. The funeral of

the royalty was ended, and the king was, after this time, to be

known simply as Louis Capet, and the queen as Marie Antoinette.

Within the Temple there was no longer a dauphin, no longer a Madame

Royale, no longer a princess, but only the Capet family!

The republic had hurled the crowns from the heads of Louis and Marie

Antoinette; and when, some days later, the linen which had been long

begged for, had been brought from the Tuileries, the republic

commanded the queen to obliterate the crown which marked each piece,

in addition to the name.

But their sufferings are by no means ended yet. Still there are some

sources of comfort left, and now and then a peaceful hour. The

crowns have fallen, but hearts still beat side by side. They have no

longer a kingdom, but they are together, they can speak with looks

one to another, they can seek to comfort one another with smiles,

they can cheer each other up with a passing grasp of the hand, that

escapes the eye of the sentries! We only suffer half what we bear in

common with others, and every thing seems lighter, when there is a

second one to help lift the load.

Perhaps the enemies of the king and queen have an instinctive

feeling of this, and their hate makes them sympathetic, in order to

teach them to invent new tortures and new sufferings.

Yes, there are unknown pangs still to be felt; their cup of sorrows

was not yet full! The parents are still left to each other, and

their eyes are still allowed to rest upon their children! But the

"one and indivisible republic" means to rend even these bonds which

bind the royal family together, and to part those who have sworn

that nothing shall separate them but death! The republic--which had

abolished the churches, overthrown the altars, driven the priesthood

into exile--the republic cannot grant to the Capet family that only

death shall separate them, for it had even made Death its servant,

and must accept daily victims from him, offered on the Place de

Liberte, in the centre of which stood the guillotine, the only altar

tolerated there.

In the middle of October the republic sent its emissaries to the

Temple, to tear the king from the arms of his wife and his children.

In spite of their pleadings and cries, he was taken to another part

of the Temple--to the great tower, which from this time was to serve

as his lodgings. And in order that the queen might be spared no

pang, the dauphin was compelled to go with his father and be

separated from his mother.

This broke the pride, the royal pride of Marie Antoinette. She wrung

her hands, she wept, she cried, she implored with such moving,

melting tones, not to be separated from her son and husband, that

even the heart of Simon the cobbler was touched.

"I really believe that these cursed women make me blubber!" cried

he, angry with the tears which forced themselves into his eyes. And

he made no objection when the other officials said to the queen,

with trembling voices, that they would allow the royal family to

come together at their meals.

One last comfort, one last ray of sunshine! There were still hours

in these dismal, monotonous days of November, when they could have

some happiness--hours for which they longed, and for whose sake they

bore the desolate solitude of the remaining time.

At breakfast, dinner, and supper, the Capet family were together;

words were interchanged, hands could rest in one another, and they

could delight in the pleasant chatter of the dauphin when the king

told about the lessons he had given the boy, and the progress he was

making.

They sometimes forgot, at those meetings, that Death was perhaps

crouching outside the Temple, waiting to receive his victims; and

they even uttered little words of pleasantry, to awaken the bright,

fresh laugh of the dauphin, the only music that ever was heard in

those dismal rooms.

But December took this last consolation from the queen. The National

Assembly, which had now been transformed into the Convention,

brought the charge of treason against the king. He was accused of

entering into a secret alliance with the enemies of France, and

calling the monarchs of Europe to come to his assistance. In an iron

safe which had been set into the wall of the cabinet in the

Tuileries, papers had been discovered which compromised the king,

letters from the refugee princes, from the Emperor of Germany, and

the King of Prussia. These monarchs were now on the very confines of

France, ready to enter upon a bloody war, and that was the fault of

the king! He was in alliance with the enemies of his country! He was

the murderer of his own subjects! On his head the blood should

return, which had been shed by him.

This was the charge which was brought against the king. Twenty

members of the Convention went to the Temple, to read it to him, and

to hear his reply. He stoutly denied haying entertained such

relations with foreign princes; he declared, with a solemn oath,

that he had declined all overtures from such quarters, because he

had seen that, in order to free an imprisoned king, France itself

must be threatened.

The chiefs of the revolution meant to find him guilty. Louis Capet

must be put out of the way, in order that Robespierre and Marat,

Danton, Petion, and their friends, might reach unlimited power.

There may have been several in the Convention who shrank from this

last consequence of their doings, but they did not venture to raise

their voices; they chimed in with the terrorism which the leaders of

the revolution exercised upon the Convention. They knew that behind

these leaders stood the savage masses of the streets, armed with

hatred against monarchy and the aristocracy, and ready to tear in

pieces any one as an enemy of the country who ventured to join the

number of those who were under the ban and the sentence of the

popular hate.

Still there were some courageous, faithful servants of the king who

ventured to take his part even there. Louis had now been summoned to

the bar as an accused person, and the Convention had transformed

itself into a tribunal whose function was to pass judgment on the

guilt or innocence of the king!

In order to satisfy all the forms of the law, the king should have

had an advocate allowed him, and the benefit of legal counsel. The

Convention demanded that those who were ready to undertake this task

should send in their names. It was a form deemed safe to abide by,

because it was believed that there would be no one who would venture

to enter upon so momentous and perilous a duty.

But there were such, nevertheless. There were still courageous and

noble men who pitied the forsaken king, and who wanted to try to

save him; not willing to see him atone for the debts of his

predecessors, and bleed for the sins of his fathers. And scarcely

had the consent of the Convention been announced, that Louis Capet

should have three advocates for his defence, when from Paris and all

the minor cities letters came in from men who declared themselves

ready to undertake the defence of the king.

Even from foreign lands there came letters and appeals in behalf of

the deposed monarch. One of them, written in spirited and glowing

language, conjured France not to soil its noble young freedom by the

dreadful murder of an innocent man, who had committed no other

offence than that he was the son of his fathers, the heir of their

crown and their remissness. It was written by a German poet,

Frederick Schiller. [Footnote: Schiller's defence of the king is

preserved in the national archives--See Beauchesue vol. i., p. 366.]

From the many requests to serve as his advocates, Louis chose only

two to defend him. The first of these was his former minister, the

philosopher Lamoignon des Malesherbes, then the advocate Trouchet,

and finally, at the pressing request of Malesherbes, the

distinguished young advocate Deseges. To those three men was

committed the trust of defending the king against the dreadful

charge of treason to his country, to be substantiated by hundreds

and hundreds of letters and documents.

After the preliminary investigations were closed, the public charge

was made in the Convention, which still held its sessions in the

Manage. To this building, situated near the Tuileries, the king,

accompanied by his three defenders and two municipal defenders, and

surrounded by National Guards, was conducted from the Temple. The

people danced around the carriage with wild shouts of joy and curses

of the king. Within the vehicle sat Louis, completely calm and self-

possessed.

"This man must be filled with a singular fanaticism," said

Colombeau, one of the leading officials, in the report which he gave

to the Convention of the ride. "It is otherwise inexplicable how

Louis could be so calm, since he had so much reason to fear. After

we had all entered the carriage, and were driving through the

streets, Louis entered upon conversation, which soon turned upon

literature, and especially upon some Latin authors. He gave his

judgments with remarkable correctness and insight, and it appeared

to me that he took pleasure in showing his learning. One of us said

that he did not enjoy Seneca, because his love for riches stood in

marked contrast with his pretended philosophy, and because it could

not easily be forgiven him that before the senate he apologized for

the crimes of Nero. This reflection did not seem to affect Louis in

the least. When we spoke of Livy, Capet said that he seemed to have

taken satisfaction in composing great speeches which were never

uttered to any other audience than that which was reached from his

study-table; 'for,' he added, 'it is impossible that generals really

delivered such long speeches in front of their armies.' He then

compared Livy with Tacitus, and thought that the latter was far

superior to the former in point of style." [Footnote: See

Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 396.] The king went on talking about Latin

authors while the carriage was carrying him through the roaring mob

to the Convention, which Desege addressed in his defence in these

courageous words: "I look for judges among you, but see only

accusers."

The king was completely calm, yet he knew that his life was

threatened, and that he was standing before a tribunal of death. As

on the day when he was first taken to the Convention, he requested

Malesherbes to forward a note to the priest whose attendance he

desired, and who he believed would not deny his presence and

attentions. His name was Edgewarth de Pirmont. The time was not

distant when not the services of advocates were wanted by the king,

but exclusively those of the priest.

The sentence of death was pronounced on January 26, 1793. Louis

received it calmly, and desired merely to see his family, to have a

confessor come to him, and to prepare himself for his death.

During these dreadful weeks Marie Antoinette was separated from her

husband, alone with her children, who no longer were able to smile,

but who sat day after day with fixed eyes and silent lips. The queen

knew that the king had been accused, had made a private reply to the

charges brought against him, and had been brought before the

Convention. But not a word, not a syllable of the trial which

followed, reached her. Madame Tison, the female dragon who guarded

her, watched her too well for any tidings to reach her.

At last, however, the word was brought which the heart of the queen

had so long anticipated tremblingly, for which she had prepared

herself during the long nights with tears and prayers, and which now

filled her with grief, anger, and despair. The king was condemned to

death! He wanted only to see his family, to take his leave of them!

The Convention had granted this privilege to him, and had even gone

so far in its grace as to permit the family to be without the

presence of witnesses. The meeting was appointed, however, in the

little dining-room of the king, because a glass door led into the

adjoining room, and the officials could then look in upon the royal

family. The functionary had withdrawn in order to conduct the queen,

the children, and the king's sister from the upper tower. The king

was awaiting them, walked disquietly up and down, and then directed

Clery, who was arranging the little room, to set the round table,

which was in the middle of the apartment, on one side, and then to

bring in a carafe of water and some glasses. "But," he added,

considerately, "not ice-water, for the queen cannot bear it, and she

might be made unwell by it."

But all at once the king grew pale, and, standing still, he laid his

hand upon his loudly-beating heart. He had heard the voice of the

queen.

The door opened and they came in--all his dear ones. The queen led

the dauphin by the hand; Madame Elizabeth walked with the Princess

Theresa.

The king went toward them and opened his arms to them. They all

pressed up to him and clasped him in their midst, while loud sobs

and heart-rending cries filled the room. Behind the door were the

officials, but they could not look in upon the scene, for their own

eyes were filled with tears. In the king's cabinet, not far away,

the Abbe Edgewarth de Firmont was upon his knees, praying for the

unfortunates whose wails and groans reached even him.

Gradually the sobs died away. They took their places--the queen at

the left of her husband; Madame Elizabeth, his sister, at his right;

opposite to him, his daughter, Maria Theresa, and between his knees

the dauphin, looking up into his father's face with widely-opened

eyes and a sad smile.

Louis was the first to speak. He told them of his trial, and of the

charges which they had brought against him. But his words were

gentle and calm, and he expressed his pity for the "poor, misled

men" who had condemned him. He asked his family, too, to forgive

them. They answered him only with sobs, embraces, tears, and kisses.

Then all was still. The officials heard not a word, but they saw the

queen, with her children and sister-in-law, sink upon their knees,

while the king, standing erect in the midst of the group, raised his

hands and blessed them in gentle, noble words, which touched the

heart of the Abbe Edgewarth, who was kneeling behind the door of the

neighboring cabinet.

The king then bade the family rise, took them again in his arms, and

kissed the queen, who, pale and trembling, clung to him, and whose

quivering lips were not able to restrain a word of denunciation of

those who had condemned him.

"I have forgiven them," said the king, seriously. "I have written my

will, and in it you will read that I pardon them, and that I ask you

to do the same. Promise me, Marie, that you will never think how you

may avenge my death."

A smile full of sadness and despair flitted over the pale lips of

the queen.

"I shall never be in a situation to take vengeance upon them," she

said. "But," she added quickly, "even if I should ever be able, and

the power should be in my hands, I promise that I will exact no

vengeance for this deed."

The king stooped down and imprinted a kiss upon her forehead.

"I thank you, Marie, and I know that you all, my dear ones, will

sacredly regard my last testament, and that my wishes and words will

be engraven on your hearts. But, my son"--and he took the dauphin

upon his knee, and looked down into his face tenderly--"you are

still a child, and might forget. You have heard what I have said,

but as an oath is more sacred than a word, raise your hand and swear

to me you will fulfil my wish and forgive all our enemies."

The boy, turning his great blue eyes fixedly on the king, and his

lips trembling with emotion, raised his right hand, and even the

officials in the next room could distinctly hear the sweet child's

voice repeating the words: "I swear to you, papa king, that I will

forgive all our enemies, and will do no harm to those who are going

to kill my dear father!"

A shudder passed through the hearts of the men in the next room;

they drew back from the door with pale faces. It seemed to them as

if they had heard the voice of an angel, and a feeling of

inexpressible pain and regret passed through their souls.

Within the king's room all now was still, and the abbe in the

cabinet heard only the gentle murmuring of their prayers, and the

suppressed weeping and sobs.

At last the king spoke. "Now, go, my dear ones. I must be alone. I

need to rest and collect myself."

A loud wail was the answer. After some minutes, Clery opened the

glass door, and the royal family were brought into the view of the

officials once more. The queen was clinging to the right arm of

Louis; they each gave a hand to the dauphin. Theresa had flung her

arms around the king's body, his sister Elizabeth clung to his left

arm. They thus moved forward a few steps toward the door, amid loud

cries of grief and heart-breaking sobs.

"I promise you," said Louis, "to see you once more tomorrow morning,

at eight o'clock."

"At eight! Why not at seven?" asked the queen, with a foreboding

tone.

"Well, then," answered the king, gently, "at seven. Farewell,

farewell!"

The depth of sadness in his utterance with which he spoke the last

parting word, doubled the tears and sobs of the weeping family. The

daughter fell in a swoon at the feet of her father, and Clery,

assisted by the Princess Elizabeth, raised her up.

"Papa, my dear papa," cried the dauphin, nestling up closely to his

father, "let us stay with you."

The queen said not a word. With pale face and with widely-opened

eyes she looked fixedly at the king, as though she wanted to impress

his countenance on her heart.

"Farewell, farewell!" cried the king, once more, and he turned

quickly around and hurried into the next room.

A single cry of grief and horror issued from all lips. The two

children, soon to be orphans, then clung closely to their mother,

who threw herself, overmastered by her sobbing, on the neck of her

sister-in-law.

"Forward! The Capet family will return to their own apartments!"

cried one of the officials.

Marie Antoinette raised herself up, her eye flashed, and with a

voice full of anger, she cried: "You are hangmen and traitors!"

[Footnote: Beauchesne, vol. 1., p. 49.]

The king had withdrawn to his cabinet, where the priest, Abbe

Edgewarth de Firmont, addressed him with comforting words. His

earnest request had been granted, to give the king the sacrament

before his death. The service was to take place very early the next

morning, so ran the decision of the authorities, and at seven the

king was to be taken to execution.

Louis received the first part of this communication joyfully, the

second part with complete calmness.

"As I must rise so early," he said to his valet Clery, "I must

retire early. This day has been a very trying one for me, and I need

rest, so as not to be weak to-morrow." He was then undressed by the

servant, and lay down. When Clery came at five the next morning to

dress him, he found the king still asleep, and they must have been

pleasant dreams which were passing before him, for a smile was

playing on his lips.

The king was dressed, and the priest gave him the sacrament, the

vessels used having been taken from the neighboring Capuchin church

of Marais. An old chest of drawers was converted by Clery into an

altar, two ordinary candlesticks stood on each side of the cup, and

in them two tallow candles burned, instead of wax. Before this altar

kneeled King Louis XVI., lost in thought and prayer, and wearing a

calm, peaceful face.

The priest read the mass; Clery responded as sacristan; and even

while the king was receiving the elements, the sound of the drums

and trumpets was heard without, which awakened Paris that morning

and told the city that the King of France was being led to his

execution. Cannon were rattling through the streets, and National

Guardsmen were hurrying on foot and on horse along the whole of the

way that led from the Temple to the Place de la Concorde. A rank of

men, four deep and standing close to one another, armed with pikes

and other weapons, guarded both sides of the street, and made it

impossible for those who wanted to liberate the king during the

ride, to come near to him. The authorities knew that one of the

bravest and most determined partisans of the king had arrived in

Paris, and that he, in conjunction with a number of young and brave-

spirited men, had resolved on rescuing the king at any cost, during

his ride to the place of execution. The utmost precautions had been

taken to render this impossible. Through the dense ranks of the

National Guard, which to-day was composed of mere sans-culottes, the

raging, bloodthirsty men of the suburbs drove the carriage in which

was the king, followed and escorted by National Guardsmen on

horseback. The windows were all closed and the curtains drawn in the

houses by which the procession passed; but behind those curtained

windows it is probable that people were upon their knees praying for

the unhappy man who was now on his way to the scaffold, and who was

once King of France.

All at once there arose a movement in this dreadful hedge of armed

men, through which the carriage was passing. Two young men cried:

"To us, Frenchmen--to us, all who want to save the king!"

But the cry found no response. Every one looked horrified at his

neighbor, and believed he saw in him a spy or a murderer; fear

benumbed all their souls, and the silence of death reigned around.

The two young men wanted to flee, to escape into a house close by.

But the door was closed, and before the very door they were cut down

and hewn in pieces by the exasperated sans-culottes.

The carriage of the king rolled on, and Louis paid no more attention

to objects around him; in the prayer-book which he carried in his

hands he read the petitions for the dying, and the abbe prayed with

him.

The coachman halted at the foot of the scaffold, and the king

dismounted. A forest of pikes surrounded the spot. The drummers beat

loudly, but the king cried with a loud voice, "Silence!" and the

noise ceased. On that, Santerre sprang forward and commanded them to

commence beating their drums again, and they obeyed him. The king

took off his upper garments, and the executioners approached to cut

off his hair. He quietly let this be done, but when they wanted to

tie his hands, his eyes flashed with anger, and with a firm voice he

refused to allow them to do so.

"Sire," said the priest, "I see in this new insult only a fresh

point of resemblance between your majesty and our Saviour, who will

be your recompense and your strength."

Louis raised his eyes to heaven with an indescribable expression of

grief and resignation. "Truly," he said, "only my recollection of

Him and His example can enable me to endure this new degradation."

He gave his hands to the executioner, to let them be bound. Then

resting on the arm of the abbe, he ascended the steps of the

scaffold. The twenty drummers, who stood around the staging, beat

their drums; but the king, advancing to the very verge of the

scaffold, commanded them with a loud voice to be silent, and the

noise ceased.

In a tone which was audible across the whole square, and which made

every word intelligible, the king said: "I die innocent of all the

charges which are brought against me. I forgive those who have

caused my death, and I pray God that the blood which you spill this

day may never come back upon the head of France. And you, unhappy

people--"

"Do not let him go on talking this way," cried Santerre's commanding

voice, interrupting the king, then turning to Louis he said, in an

angry tone, "I brought you here not to make speeches, but to die!"

The drums beat, the executioners seized the king and bent him down.

The priest stooped over him and murmured some words which only God

heard, but which a tradition full of admiration and sympathy has

transposed into the immortal and popular formula which is truer than

truth and more historical than history: "Son of St. Louis, ascend to

Heaven!"

The drums beat, a glistening object passed through the air, a stroke

was heard, and blood spirted up. The King of France was dead, and

Samson the executioner lifted up the head, which had once borne a

crown, to show it to the people.

A dreadful silence followed for an instant; then the populace broke

in masses through the rows of soldiers, and rushed to the scaffold,

in order to bear away some remembrances of this ever-memorable

event. The clothes of the king were torn to rags and distributed,

and they even gave the executioner some gold in exchange for locks

of hair from the bleeding head. An Englishman gave a child fifteen

louis d'or for dipping his handkerchief in the blood which flowed

from the scaffold. Another paid thirty louis d'or for the peruke of

the king. [Footnote: These details I take from the "Vossische

Zeitung," which, in its issue of the 5th of February, 1798, contains

a full report of the execution of King Louis XVI., and also

announces that the court of Prussia will testify its grief at the

unmerited fate by wearing mourning for a period of four weeks. The

author of this work possesses a copy of the " Vossische Zeitung " of

that date, in small quarto form, printed on thick, gray paper. In

the same number of the journal is a fable by Hermann Pfeffel, which

runs in the following strain:

First moral, then political freedom.

A fable, by Hermann Pfeffel. Zeus and the Tigers.

To Zeus there came one day

A deputation of tigers. "Mighty potentate,"

Thus spoke their Cicero before the monarch's throne,

"The noble nation of tigers,

Has long been wearied with the lion's choice as king.

Does not Nature give us an equal claim with his?

Therefore, O Zeus, declare my race

To be a people of free citizens!"

"No," said the god of gods, "it cannot be;

You are deceivers, thieves, and murderers,

Only a good people merits being free."

[Footnote: "Marie Antoinette et sa Famine," par Lescure, p. 648.]

On the evening of the same day, the executioner Samson, shocked at

the terrible deed which he had done, went to a priest, paid for

masses to be said for the repose of the king, then laid down his

office, retired into solitude, and died in six months. His son was

his successor in his ghostly office, and, in a pious manner, he

continued what his father began. The masses for the king, instituted

by the two Samsons, continued to be read till the year 1840.

On the morrow which followed this dreadful day, the "Widow Capet"

requested the authorities to provide for herself and her family a

suite of mourning of the simplest kind.

The republic was magnanimous enough to comply with this request.

CHAPTER XXI.

TOULAN.

The citizen Toulan is on guard again at the Temple, and this time

with his friend Lepitre. He is so trustworthy and blameless a

republican, and so zealous a citizen, that the republic gives him

unconditional confidence. The republic had appointed him as chief of

the bureau for the control of the effects of emigres. Toulan is,

besides, a member of the Convention; and it is not his fault that,

on the day when the decision was made respecting the king's life or

death, he was not in the Assembly. He had been compelled at that

time to make a journey into the provinces, to attach the property of

an aristocrat who had emigrated. Had Toulan been in Paris, he would

naturally have given his voice in favor of the execution of the

king. He says this freely and openly to every one, and every one

believes him, for Toulan is an entirely unsuspected republican. He

belongs to the sans-culottes, and takes pride in not being dressed

better than the meanest citizen. He belongs to the friends of Marat,

and Simon the cobbler is always happy when Toulan has the watch in

the Temple; for Toulan is such a jovial, merry fellow, he can make

such capital jokes and laugh so heartily at those of others. They

have such fine times when Toulan is there, and the sport is the

greatest when his friend Lepitre is with him on service in the

Temple. Then the two have the grandest sport of all; they even have

little plays, which are so funny that Simon has to laugh outright,

and even the turnkey Tison, and his wife, forget to keep guard, and

leave the glass door through which they have been watching the royal

family, in order to be spectators at Toulan's little farces.

"These are jolly days when you are both in the Temple," said Simon,

"and you cannot blame me if I like to have you here, and put you on

service pretty often."

"Oh, we do not blame you for that," said Toulan, "on the other hand,

we particularly like being with you, you are such a splendid

fellow!"

"And then," adds Lepitre to this, "it is so pleasant to see the

proud she-wolf and her young ones, and to set them down a little.

These people, when they were living in the Tuileries, have turned up

their noses at us often enough, and acted as if we were only dust

that they must blow away from their exalted presence. It is time

that they should feel a little that they are only dust for us to

blow away!"

"Yes, indeed," chimed in Toulan, "it is high time that they should

feel it!"

"And you both understood that matter capitally," said Simon, with a

laugh, "I always see that it particularly provokes the queen to have

you on service, and I like that, and I am especially glad to have

you here."

"I've thought out a joke for to-day," said Toulan. "I will teach the

widow to smoke. You know, brother Simon, that she always pretends

not to be able to bear the smell of tobacco, she shall learn to bear

it. I will hand her a paper cigarette to-day, and tell her that if

she does not want us to smoke, she must smoke with us."

"Splendid joke!" said Simon, with a loud laugh. "But there's one

thing to be thought of about that," said Lepitre, reflectively. "the

widow Capet might perhaps promise to smoke, if we would tell her

that we would never smoke afterward. But then we should not keep our

word, of course."

"What! you say we should not keep our word!" said Toulan, in

amazement. "We are republicans; more than that, we are sans-

culottes! and shall we not keep our word? ought we not to be better

than the cursed aristocrats, that never kept their word to the

people? How can you disgrace us and yourself so much? Ask our noble

friend and brother Simon, whether he is of the opinion that a free

man ought not to keep his word, even if he has only given it to a

woman in prison."

"I am of that opinion," said Simon, with dignity. "I swore to myself

that the king should lose his head, and I kept my word. I promised

the she-wolf that she should be hanged, and I hope to keep this

promise too. If I keep my word to her in what is bad, I must do so

also in what is good. If a republican promises any thing, he must

hold to it."

"Right, Simon, you are a noble and wise man. It remains fixed, then,

that the queen shall smoke, but if we have our joke out, we shall

not smoke any more."

"I will put up a placard on the door: 'Smoking forbidden in the

anteroom of the she-wolf.'"

"Good," cried Toulan, "that is worthy of you."

"Let us go up now," said Simon, "the two other sentries are up-

stairs already, they will wonder that you come so late, but I do

like to chat with you. Come on, let's go up. I'll stay there to see

the joke. But wait a moment, there is something new. It has been

proposed that not so many guards are needed to watch the Capets, and

that it has the appearance as if the government was afraid of these

howling women and this little monkey, whom the crazy royalists call

King Louis XVII. It is very likely that they will reduce the guard

to two."

"Very good," said Toulan, approvingly.--"What's the use of wearying

out so many other men and condemning them to such idleness? We

cannot be making jokes all the time; and then again it is not

pleasant always looking on these people's long faces."

"So only two guards," said Lepitre; "but that seems to me rather too

few, for what if the widow should succeed in winning them over and

getting them to help her escape?"

"Impossible!" cried Simon, "she'll never come around me, and as long

as I have my eyes open, she and her brood will never get away. No

one can come down the staircase without my hearing and seeing it,

for you know my rooms are near the stairs, and the door is always

open and I am always there, and then there is the turnkey Ricard,

who watches the door that leads to the court like a cerberus. Then

there are three sentries at the doors leading from the inner court

to the outer one, and the four sentries at the doors leading from

the outer court to the street. No, no, my friends, if the she-wolf

wants to escape she must use magic, and make wings grow on her

shoulders and fly away."

"That is good, I like that," said Toulan, springing up the

staircase.

"And that settles my doubts too," said Lepitre. "I should think two

official guards would suffice, for it is plain that she cannot

escape. Simon is on the look-out, and it is plain that the she-wolf

cannot transform herself into an eagle."

"Well said," laughed Simon; "here we are before the door, let's go

in and have our fun."

He dashed the door open noisily, and went into the room with the two

men. Two officials were sitting in the middle of the room at the

table, and were actively engaged playing cards. Through the open

door you could look into the sitting-room of the Capet family. The

queen was sitting on the divan behind the round table, clothed in

her sad suit of mourning, with a black cap upon her gray locks.

She was busy in dictating an exercise to the dauphin from a book

which she held in her hand. The prince, also clad in black and with

a broad crape about his arm, sat upon a chair by her side. His whole

attention was directed to his work, and he was visibly making an

effort to write as well as possible, for a glowing red suffused hia

cheeks.

On the other side of the queen sat Madame Elizabeth; near her the

Princess Maria Theresa, both busy in preparing some clothing for the

queen.

No one of the group appeared to notice the loud opening of the door,

no one observed the entering forms, or cast even a momentary glance

at them.

But Toulan was not contented with this; he demanded nothing less

than that the she-wolf should look at him. He hurried through the

anteroom with a threatening tread, advanced to the door of the

sitting-room, and stopped upon the threshold, making such a deep and

ceremonious bow, and swinging his arm so comically, that Simon was

compelled to laugh aloud.

"Madame," cried Toulan, "I have the inexpressible honor of greeting

your grace."

"He is a brick, a perfect brick," roared Simon.

Lepitre had gone to the window, and turned his back upon the room;

he was perhaps too deficient in spirit to join in the joke. Nobody

paid any attention to him; nobody saw him take a little packet from

his coat-pocket, and slide it slowly and carefully behind the wooden

box that stood beneath the window.

"Madame," cried Toulan, in a still louder voice, "I fear your grace

has not heard my salutation."

The queen slowly raised her eyes, and turned them to the man who was

still standing upon the threshold. "I heard it," she said, coldly,

"go on writing, my son." And she went on in the sentence that she

had just then begun to dictate.

"I am so happy at being heard by Madame Veto that I shall have to

celebrate it by a little bonfire!"--said Toulan, taking a cigar from

his breast-pocket. "You see, my friends, that I am a very good

courtier, though I have the honor to be a sans-culottes. In the

presence of handsome ladies I only smoke cigars! Hallo! bring me a

little fire."

One of the officials silently passed him his long pipe. Toulan

lighted his cigar, placed himself at the threshold, and blew great

clouds of smoke into the chamber.

The ladies still continued to sit quietly without paying any

attention to Toulan. The queen dictated, and the dauphin wrote. The

queen only interrupted herself in this occupation, when she had to

cough and wipe her eyes, which the smoke filled with tears.

Toulan had followed every one of her movements with an amused look.

"Madame does not appear to take any pleasure in my bonfire!" he

said. "Will madame not smoke?"

The queen made no reply, but quietly went on with her dictation.

"Madame," cried Toulan, laughing loudly, "I should like to smoke a

pipe of peace with you, as our brown brethren in happy, free America

do--madame, I beg you to do me the honor to smoke a pipe of peace

with me."

A flash lightened in the eyes which the queen now directed to

Toulan. "You are a shameless fellow!" she said.

"Hear that," said Simon, "that is what I call abusing you."

"On the contrary, it delights me," cried Toulan, "for you will

confess that it would be jolly if she should smoke now, and I tell

you, she will smoke."

He advanced some paces into the room, and made his deep bow again.

"He understands manners as well as if he had been a rascally

courtier himself," said Simon, laughing. "It is a splendid joke."

The two princesses had arisen at the entrance of Toulan, and laid

their sewing-work aside. A ball of white cotton had fallen to the

ground from the lap of one of them, and rolled through the room

toward Toulan.

He picked it up, and bowed to the princesses. "May I view this

little globe," he said, "as a reminder of the favor of the loveliest

ladies of France? Oh, yes, I see in your roguish smile that I may,

and I thank you," said Toulan, pressing the round ball to his lips,

and then putting it into his breast-pocket.

"He plays as well as the fellows do in the theatre," said Simon,

laughing.

"Go into our sleeping-room," said Marie Antoinette, turning to the

princesses. "It is enough for me to have to bear these indignities--

go, my son, accompany your aunt."

The dauphin stood up, pressed a kiss upon the hand of his mother,

and followed the two princesses, who had gone into the adjoining

apartment.

"Dear aunt," whispered the dauphin, "is this bad man the good friend

who--"

"Hush!" whispered Madame Elizabeth, "hush! Madame Tison is

listening."

And, in fact, at the glass-door, which led from the sleeping-room to

the little corridor, stood Madame Tison, looking with sharp,

searching glances into the chamber.

After the princesses had left the room, Toulan approached still

closer to the queen, and taking a cigar from his breast-pocket, he

handed it to the queen. "Take it, madame," he said, "and do me the

honor of smoking a duet with me!"

"I do not smoke, sir," replied the queen, coolly and calmly. "I beg

you to go into the anteroom. The Convention has not, so far as I

understand, ordered the officers of the guard to tarry in my

sitting-room."

"The Convention has not ordered it, nor has it forbidden it. So I

remain!"

He took a chair, seated himself in the middle of the room, and

rolled out great clouds of smoke, which filled Simon with

unspeakable delight when they compelled Marie Antoinette to cough

violently.

"Madame Capet, you would not be so sensitive to smoke if you would

only join me. I beg you, therefore, to take this cigar."

The queen repeated calmly, "I do not smoke."

"You mistake, madame, you do smoke."

"See the jolly fellow," exclaimed Simon, "that is splendid."

"I will show you at once that you do smoke," continued Toulan.

"Madame, if you will do me the honor to join me in smoking a cigar,

I will give you my word as a republican and a sans-culottes, that

neither I nor my brothers will ever smoke here again."

"I do not believe you," said the queen, shaking her head.

"Not believe me? Would you believe it if the citizen Simon were to

repeat it?"

"Yes," said the queen, fixing her great, sad eyes upon Simon, "if

the citizen Simon should confirm it, I would believe it, for he is a

trustworthy man, who I believe; never breaks his word."

"Oh! only see how well the Austrian understands our noble brother

Simon," cried Lepitre.

"Yes, truly, it seems so," said Simon, who had been flattered by

this praise to consent to what he had no inclination for. "Well, I

give my word to Widow Capet, as a republican and a sans-culottes,

that there shall be no smoking in the anteroom after this time, if

she will do my friend Toulan the favor of smoking a pipe of peace

with him."

"I believe your word," said the queen, with a gentle inclination of

her head; and then turning to Toulan, she continued, "sir--"

"There are no 'sirs' here, only 'citizens,'" interrupted the

cobbler.

"Citizen Toulan," said the queen, changing her expression, "give me

the cigar, I see that I was wrong, I do smoke!"

Simon cried aloud with laughter and delight, and could scarcely

control himself, when, kneeling before the queen, as the players do

in the grand plays at the theatre, he handed her a cigar.

But he did not see the supplicatory look which Toulan fixed upon the

queen; he did not see the tears which started into his eyes, nor

hear her say, during his inordinate peals of laughter, "I thank you,

my faithful one!"

"Is it enough if I take the cigar in my mouth, or must I burn it?"

asked the queen.

"Certainly, she must burn it," cried Simon. "Light the cigar for

her, Citizen Toulan."