Toulan drew a bit of paper from his pocket, folded it together,

kindled it, and gave it to the queen. Then, as soon as the dry cigar

began to burn, he put out the light, and threw it carelessly upon

the table.

The queen put the little smoking cigarette into her mouth. "Bravo,

bravo!" shouted the officials and Simon.

"Bravo, Citizen Toulan is a perfect brick! He has taught Widow Capet

how to smoke."

"I told you I would," said Toulan, proudly. "Widow Capet has had to

comply with our will, and that is enough. You need not go on,

madame. You have acknowledged our power, and that is all we wanted.

That is enough, Simon, is it not? She does not need to smoke any

longer, and we, too, must stop."

"No, she does not need to smoke any longer, and there will be no

more smoking in the antechamber."

The queen took the paper cigarette from her mouth, put out the

burning end, and laid the remaining portion in her work-basket.

"Citizen Toulan," said she, "I will keep this cigar as a

remembrancer of this hour, and if you ever smoke here again, I shall

show it to you."

"I should like to see this Austrian woman doubting the word of a

sans-culottes," cried Simon.

"And I too, Simon," replied Toulan, going back into the anteroom.

"We will teach her that she must trust our word. You see that I am a

good teacher."

"An excellent one," cried Simon; "I must compliment you on it,

citizen. But if you have no objections, we will play a game or two

of cards with the citizens here."

"All right," replied Toulan. "But I hope you have got the new kind

of cards, which have no kings and queens on them. For, I tell you, I

do not play with the villanous old kind."

"Nor I," chimed in Lepitre. "It makes me mad to see the old stupids

with their crowns on that are on the old kind of cards."

"You are a pair of out-and-out republicans," said Simon, admiringly.

"Truly, one might learn of you how a sans-culottes ought to bear

himself."

"Well, you can calm yourselves about these, brothers," said one of

the officials; "we have no tyrant-cards--we have the new cards of

the republic. See there! instead of the king, there is a sans-

culottes; instead of the queen, we have a 'knitter,' [Footnote: The

market-women and hucksters had the privilege of claiming the first

seats on the spectators' platform, near the guillotine. They sat

there during the executions, knitting busily on long stockings,

while looking at the bloody drama before them. Every time that a

head was cut off and dropped into the basket beneath the knife, the

women made a mark in their knitting-work, and thus converted their

stockings into a kind of calendar, which recorded the number of

persons executed. From this circumstance the market-women received

the name of "knitters."] and for the jack, we have a Swiss soldier,

for they were the menials of the old monarchy." [Footnote:

Historical.-See "Memoires de la Marquise de Crequi," vol. III.]

"That is good; well, we will play then," cried Toulan, with an air

of good-humor.

They all took their places at the table, while the queen took up the

sewing on which the princesses had been engaged before.

After some time, when the thread with which she was sewing was

exhausted, Marie Antoinette raised her eyes and turned them to the

men, who had laid their pipes aside, and were zealously engaged upon

their cards. The mien of the queen was no longer so calm and rigidly

composed as it had been before, and when she spoke, there was a

slight quivering discernible in her voice.

"Citizen Toulan," she said, "I beg you to give me the ball of thread

again. I have no more, and this dress is in a wretched condition; I

must mend it."

Toulan turned toward her with a gesture of impatience.

"You disturb me, madame, and put me out in the game. What are you

saying?"

"I asked you, Citizen Toulan, to give me the thread again, because,

without it, I cannot work."

"Oh! the ball which little Miss Capet gave me a short time ago. And

so you won't let me keep a remembrance of the pretty girl?"

"I must mend this dress," said the queen, gently.

"Well, if you must, you must," growled Toulan, rising.

"Wait a moment, brothers, till I carry her the ball."

"What do you want to get up for?" asked Simon.

"You can throw it from here."

"Or give it a roll like a ball," added Lepitre.

"That is a good idea," cried Toulan, "I'll have a little game of

nine-pins. I am quite at home there, and can do it well. Now look

sharp! I will contrive to roll the ball between the four feet of the

table, and strike the foot of the queen."

"There is no queen," cried Lepitre, passionately.

"I am speaking of the game, Citizen Lepitre; do me the pleasure of

not making yourself an ass. Now look, and see me roll it as I said!"

"Well, go ahead; we should like to see you do it," cried Simon.

"Yes, we would like to see you do it," chimed in the officials,

laying down their cards.

Toulan now drew out of his breast-pocket a black ball of silk, and

counted "One, two, three!" He then gave it a skilful roll across the

floor. With attention and laughing looks, they all watched it take

its course across the waxed floor, as it moved just where Toulan had

said it would.

"Bravo, bravo!" shouted the men, as the ball struck the foot of the

queen, who stooped down slowly and picked it up.

"Toulan is a jolly good fellow," cried Simon, striking the table

with his fists in an ecstasy of delight. "But I declare it seems to

me that the ball is a good deal larger now than it was before."

"It may be," answered Toulan, emphatically. "Every thing grows and

enlarges itself, that a true and genuine sans-culottes carries next

to his heart."

"Well said," replied Lepitre. "But listen to me, I want to make a

proposition to you. I must say that it is hard work--playing cards

without smoking."

"I find it so, too," sighed Toulan.

"I rather think we all do," chimed in the others.

"But we must keep our word, or else the she-wolf will think that we

republicans are no better than the aristocrats were!"

"Yes, we must keep our word," said Lepitre, "and that is why I

wanted to make the proposition that we go out and establish

ourselves in the entry. We can put the table close to the door, and

then we are certainly safe--that no one can step in. What do you

say, brother Simon?"

"I say that it is a very good plan, and that we will carry it into

execution directly. Come, friends, let us take up the table, and

carry it out. If the dogs are on the watch outside, the badger does

not creep out of his house. Come, it is much pleasanter out there,

and we are not ambitious of the honor of looking at Widow Capet all

the time. We are perfectly satisfied, if we do not see her. I hope

there will be an end of this tedious service, and that she will soon

go to the place whither Louis Capet has already gone."

"Or," cried Toulan, laughing, "she must change herself into an

eagle, and fly out of the window. Come, brothers, I long for my

pipe. Let us carry the table out into the entry."

Simon opened the door that led out upon the landing, the officials

took up the table, and Toulan and Lepitre the wooden stools. One

quick look they cast into the room of the queen, whose eyes were

turned to them. A sudden movement of Lepitre's hand pointed to the

bench beneath the window: a movement of Toulan's lips said "To-

morrow;" then they both turned away; went with their stools out upon

the landing, and closed the door.

The queen held her breath and listened. She heard them moving the

chairs outside, and pushing the table up against the door, and

detected Simon's harsh voice, saying, "Now that we have put a

gigantic wooden lock on the door, let us smoke and play."

The queen sprang up. "God bless my faithful one," whispered she;

"yes, God bless him!"

She went hastily into the anteroom, pressed her hand in behind the

bench beneath the window, took out the package which Lepitre had

placed there, and with a timid, anxious look, stepped back into her

room. Here she unfolded the bundle. It consisted of a boy's soiled

dress, an old peruke, and an old felt hat.

The queen looked at it with the utmost attention; then, after

casting one long, searching look through the room, she hastened to

the divan, pushed back the already loosened cover of the seat,

concealed the things beneath it, and then carefully smoothed down

the upholstery again.

She now hurried to the door of the sleeping-room, and was going to

open it hastily. But she bethought herself in time. Her face showed

too much emotion, her voice might betray her. Madame Tison was

certainly lurking behind the glass door, and might notice her

excitement. Marie Antoinette again put on her ordinary sad look,

opened the door slowly and gravely, and quietly entered the

sleeping-room. Her great eyes, whose brightness had long since been

extinguished by her tears, slowly passed around the chamber, rested

for a moment on the glass door, descried behind it the spying face

of Tison, and turned to the two princesses, who were sitting with

the dauphin on the little divan in the corner.

"Mamma," asked the boy, "are the bad men gone?"

"Do not call them so, my child," replied Marie Antoinette, gently.

"These men only do what others order them to do."

"Then the others are bad, mamma," said the boy, quickly. "Oh, yes,

very bad, for they make my dear mamma weep so much."

"I do not weep about them," answered his mother. "I weep because

your father is no more with us. Think about your father, my son, and

never forget that he has commanded us to forgive his and our

enemies."

"And never to take vengeance on them," added the boy, with a grave

look beyond his years, as he folded his hands. "Yes, I have sworn it

to my dear papa, and I shall keep my word. I mean never to take

vengeance on our enemies."

"Sister," said the queen, after a pause, "I want to ask you to help

me a little in my work. You know how to mend, and I want to learn of

you. Will you come into the sitting-room?"

"And we, too, mamma," asked the dauphin, "may we not stay here?

Theresa has promised to tell me an interesting story if I did my

examples in arithmetic correctly, and I have done them."

"Well, she may tell you the story. We will leave the door open so

that we can see you; for you know, my children, you are now the only

comfort left to your aunt and me. Come, sister!"

She turned slowly and went into the next room, followed by Madame

Elizabeth.

"Why, what does this mean?" asked the princess, in amazement, as she

saw the anteroom deserted and the door closed.

"All his work, Elizabeth--all the work of this noble, faithful

Toulan. He went through a whole farce in order to get the people out

of here, and to make them swear that they never would smoke after

this in the anteroom. Oh, I shall never be able to repay him for

what he has done for us at the peril of his life."

"We will pray for him every morning and evening," replied the pious

Elizabeth. "But tell me, sister, did Toulon keep our ball of

thread?"

"Yes, sister, and succeeded in giving me another in exchange for it.

Here it is. To-night, when the guards are asleep, we will unwind it

and see what it contains. But here are other important things which

we must examine. Here, this half-burned light and this cigarette!

Let us be on the watch that no one surprise us."

She went again to the threshold of the sleeping-room. "Can you hear

me talk, children? Nod with your head if you heard me. Good. If

Tison comes in, speak to her loudly, and call her by name, so that

we may hear."

"And now, sister," she continued, turning to the table, "let us see

what Toulan has sent us. First, the cigar-light!"

She unfolded the paper, one side of which was burned, and showed a

black, jagged edge.

"A letter from M. de Jarjayes," she said, and then, in a subdued

voice, she hastily read: "I have spoken with the noble messenger

whom you sent to me with a letter. He has submitted his plan to me,

and I approve it entirely, and am ready to undertake any thing that

is demanded of me in behalf of those to whom my life, my property,

and my blood belong, and who never shall have occasion to doubt my

fidelity. The 'true one' will bring you to-morrow every thing that

is needful, and talk the matter over with you.--J." "And now the

cigarette," said the queen, taking it out of her basket.

"Let us first tear the paper to pieces," said Princess Elizabeth,

warningly.

"No, no, Tison would find the bits, and think them suspicious. I

will hide the paper in my dress-pocket, and this evening when we

have a light we will burn it. Quickly now, the cigar!"

"A paper cigarette!" said Elizabeth.

"Yes, and see on the outer paper, 'Unroll carefully!'"

And with extreme caution Marie Antoinette removed the external

covering. Beneath it was another, closely written over; this the

queen proceeded to unfold.

"What is it?" asked the Princess Elizabeth, impatiently.

"See," said Marie Antoinette, with a faint smile:

"'Plan for the escape of the royal family. To learn by heart, and

then to burn.' Oh! sister, do you believe that escape is possible

for us?"

At this instant Simon was heard outside, singing with his loud,

coarse voice:

"Madame a sa tour monte Ne salt quand descendra, Madame Veto la

dansera." [Footnote: "Madame will take her turn, She knows not when

it will come, But Madame Veto will swing."]

The queen shuddered, and Madame Elizabeth folded her hands and

prayed in silence.

"You hear the dreadful answer, sister, that this sans-culotte gives

to my question! Well, so long as there is a breath left within us we

must endeavor to save the life of King Louis XVII. Come, sister, we

will read this plan for our escape, which the faithful Toulan has

made."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE PLAN OF THE ESCAPE.

Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth listened again at the door,

and as Simon was just then beginning a new verse of his ribald song,

they carefully unrolled the paper and spread it out before them.

"Read it to me, sister," said the queen. "My eyes are bad and pain

me very much; and then the words make more impression when I hear

them than when I read them; I beg you therefore to read it."

In a light whisper the princess began to read "The Plan of Escape."

"The queen and Princess Elizabeth must put on men's clothes. The

necessary garments are already in their possession, for T. and L.

have within the last few days secreted them in the cushions and

mattresses. In addition, the queen receives to-day a dirty, torn

boy's suit and a peruke, and a pair of soiled children's shoes.

These are for the dauphin and Madame Royale; and if the queen looks

attentively at the things, she will find that they are exact copies

of the clothing in which the two children appear who always

accompany the lamplighter into the tower and assist him in lighting

the lamps. So much for the clothing. The plan of escape is as

follows: To-morrow evening, at six o'clock, the royal children will

change their dress in the little tower next to the chamber of the

queen. In their soiled costume they will remain within the tower,

whither it is known that Tison and his wife never come, and will

wait there until some one gives them a signal and calls them. Toulan

and Lepitre will arrange to have the watch again to-morrow in the

tower. At a quarter before seven in the evening, Toulan will give a

pinch of snuff to Madame Tison and her husband, who are both

passionately fond of it, and they will speedily take it as they

always do. This pinch of snuff will consist entirely of colored

opium. They will fall into a heavy sleep, which will last at least

seven hours, and during this times the flight of all the members of

the royal family must be accomplished--"

"Wait a moment, sister," whispered the queen, "I feel dizzy, and my

heart beats violently, as if we were engaged now in the very

execution of the plan. It seems to me as if, in the darkness of the

dreadful night which surrounds us, a glimmer of hope was suddenly

appearing, and my eyes are blinded with it. Oh, sister, do you

really think it possible that we can escape this place of torment?"

"Escape we will certainly, my dear sister," answered Elizabeth,

gently, "but it lies in God's hands whether it is our bodies or our

souls only that will escape. If we do not succeed, they will kill

us, and then our freed souls will ascend to God. Oh, my noble queen

and sister, let us pray that God would give us courage and

steadfastness to hope in Him and to conform to His will."

"Yes, sister, let us pray," said the queen, folding her hands, and

reverentially bending her head. Then after a pause, in which they

could hear from without the noisy laughter of Simon and his

comrades, the queen raised herself up, and her countenance had

regained its wonted calm and grave expression.

"And now, Elizabeth, read on further. Let us hear the continuation

of the plan."

Madame Elizabeth took the paper and read on in a whispering voice:

"As soon as Tison and his wife have fallen asleep, the queen and

Madame Elizabeth will put on their clothes. Over the men's garments

they will throw the cloaks which Toulan brought yesterday, and these

cloaks will disguise their gait and size. But care must be taken

that the tri-colored sashes of the commissaries which Lepitre

brought yesterday with the admission-cards of the same authorities,

should peep out from beneath the cloaks so as to be visible to every

one. Thus arrayed, the two ladies will pass by the sentry, showing

him the card as they go out (meanwhile talking with Lepitre), leave

the Temple, and go with Lepitre to the Rue de la Conderie, where M.

de Jarjayes will be waiting to conduct the ladies farther."

"But the children," whispered the queen, "do the children not

accompany us? Oh! they ought not to think that I would leave this

place while my dear children are compelled to remain here. What is

to be done with the children, Elizabeth?"

"We shall soon learn that, sister; allow me to read on. 'At seven

o'clock, as soon as the guard is changed, a man disguised as a

lamplighter, with his tin filler in his hand, will appear at the

gate of the Temple, knock loudly and demand of the guard that his

children, who had this day been taking care of the lantern, should

be allowed to come out. On this, Toulan will bring the dauphin and

Madame Royale in their changed costume, and while delivering them

over to the supposed lamplighter he will scold him soundly for not

taking care of the lanterns himself, but giving it to the children.

This is the plan whose execution is possible and probable, if every

thing is strictly followed. Before the affair is discovered, there

will be at least seven hours' advantage and the royal family will be

able, with the passes already secured by M. Jarjayes, to be a long

way off before their flight will be discovered by Tison. In a secure

house, whither Toulan will lead them, the royal family will find

simple citizen's clothing. Without exciting any stir, and

accompanied by Messieurs Jarjayes and Toulan, they will reach

Normandy. A packet-boat furnished by an English friend lies in

readiness to receive the royal family and take them to their--' "

"Good-day, Madame Tison!" cried the dauphin loudly, "good-day, my

dear Madame Tison!"

Madame Elizabeth hastily concealed the paper in her bosom, and Marie

Antoinette had scarcely time to hide the ball of thread in her

pocket, when Tison appeared upon the threshold of the door, looked

with her sharp lynx-eyes around, and then fixed them upon the two

ladies.

She saw that Marie Antoinette did not display her accustomed

dignified calmness, and that Elizabeth's pale cheeks were unusually

red.

"Something is going on," said the spy to herself, "and what does it

mean that to-day the commissaries are not in the anteroom, and that

they let these women carry on their chattering entirely unwatched?"

"Madame has been reading?" asked Tison, subjecting every object upon

the table before which the ladies were sitting, to a careful

scrutiny. "Madame has been reading," she repeated; "I heard paper

rattling, and I see no book."

"You are under a mistake," replied Madame Elizabeth, "we have not

been reading, we have been sewing; but supposing we were reading, is

there any wrong in that? Have they made any law that forbids that?"

"No," answered Tison, "no--I only wondered how people could rattle

paper and there be none there, but all the same--the ladies of

course have a right to read, and we must be satisfied with that."

And she went out, looking right and left like a hound on the scent,

and searching every corner of the room.

"I must see what kind of officials we have here to-day," said Tison

to herself, slipping through the little side-door and through the

corridor; "I shouldn't wonder if it were Toulan and Lepitre again,

for every time when they two--right!" she ejaculated, looking

through the outer door, "right! it is they, Toulan and Lepitre. I

must see what Simon's wife has to say to that."

She slipped down the broad staircase, and passed through the open

door into the porter's lodge. Madame Simon, one of the most savage

of the knitters, had shortly returned from the guillotine, and was

sitting upon her rush chair, busily counting on a long cotton

stocking which she held in her hand.

"How many heads to-day?" asked Tison.

Madame Simon slowly shook her head, decorated with a white knit cap.

"It is hardly worth the pains," she said dismally,--"the machine

works badly, and the judges are neglectful. Only five cars to-day,

and on every one only seven persons." "What!" cried Tison, "only

thirty-five heads to-day in all?"

"Yes, only thirty-five heads," repeated Madame Simon, shaking her

head; "I have just been counting on my stocking, and I find only

thirty-five seam-stitches, for every seam-stitch means a head. For

such a little affair we have had to sit six hours in the wet and

cold on the platform. The machine works too slowly, I say--

altogether too slowly. The judges are easy, and there is no more

pleasure to be derived from the executions."

"They must be stirred up," said Tison with a fiendish look; "your

husband must speak with his friend, citizen Marat, and tell him that

his best friends the knitters, and most of all, Simon's wife, are

dissatisfied, and if it goes on so, the women will rise and hurry

all the men to the guillotine. That will stir them up, for they do

respect the knitters, and if they fear the devil, they fear yet more

his proud grandmother, and every one of us market-women and knitters

is the devil's grandmother."

"Yes, they do respect us and they shall," said Madame Simon, setting

her glistening needles in motion again, and working slowly on the

stocking; "I will myself speak with citizen Marat, and believe me, I

will fire him up, and then we shall have better play, and see more

cars driven up to the guillotine. We must keep our eyes well open,

arid denounce all suspicious characters."

"I have my eyes always open," cried Tison, with a coarse laugh, "and

I suspect traitors before they have committed any thing. There, for

example, are the two officials, Toulan and Lepitre, do you have

confidence in them?"

"I have no confidence in them whatever, and I have never had any

confidence in them," answered Madame Simon, with dignity, and

setting her needles in more rapid motion. "In these times you must

trust nobody, and least of all those who are so very earnest to keep

guard over the Austrian woman; for a true republican despises the

aristocracy altogether too much to find it agreeable to be with such

scum, and shows it as much as he can, but Toulan is always wanting

to be there. Wait a moment, and I will tell you how many times

Toulan and Lepitre have kept guard the present month."

She drew a little memorandum-book from her reticule, which hung by

black bands from her brown hairy arm, and turned over the leaves.

"There, here it is," she said.

"To-day is the 20th of February, and the two men have already kept

guard eight times the present month. That is three times as many as

they need to do. Every one of the officials who were appointed to

keep guard in the Temple is obliged to serve only once a week, and

both of these traitors are now here for the eighth time. And my

husband is so stupid and so blinded that he believes this prattler

Toulan when he tells him he comes here merely to be with citizen

Simon; but they cannot come round me with their talk; they cannot

throw dust in my eyes. I shall keep them open, wide open, let me

tell you."

"They are not sitting inside in the antechamber to-day," whispered

Tison, "but outside on the landing, and they have closed the door of

the anteroom, so that the Austrian has been entirely alone and

unobserved these hours."

"Alone!" cried the knitter, and her polished needles struck so

violently against each other that you could hear them click. "My

husband cannot be to blame for that; Toulan must have talked him

into it, and he must have a reason for it; he must have a reason,

and if it is only from his having pity upon her, that is enough and

more than enough to bring him under suspicion and to build an

accusation upon. He must be removed, say I. There shall no such

compassionate worms as he creep into the Temple. I will clear them

out--I will clear them out with human blood!"

She looked so devilish, her eyes glared so with such a cruel

coldness, and such a fiendish smile played upon her pale, thin lips,

that even Madame Tison was afraid of her, and felt as if a cold,

poisonous spider was creeping slowly over her heart.

"They are sitting still outside, you say?" asked Madame Simon, after

a pause.

"Yes, they are still sitting outside upon the landing, and the

Austrian woman is at this time alone unwatched with her brood, and

she will be alone for two hours yet, for there is no change of guard

till then."

"That is true, yes, that is true," cried the knitter, and her

nostrils expanded like those of the hyena when on the scent of

blood. "They will sit up there two hours longer, playing cards and

singing stupid songs, and wheedling my monkey of a husband with

their flatteries, making him believe that they love him, love him

boundlessly, and they let themselves be locked into the Temple for

his sake, and--oh! if I had them here, I would strangle them with my

own hands! I would make a dagger of every one of my knitting-needles

and thrust it into their hearts! But quiet, quiet," she continued in

a grumbling tone, "every thing must go on in a regular way. Will you

take my place here for half an hour and guard the door? I have

something important to do, something very important."

"It will be a very great honor," replied Madame Tison, "a very great

honor to be the substitute of one so well known and respected as you

are, of whom every one knows that she is the best patriot and the

most courageous knitter, whose eyelashes never quiver, and who can

calmly go on with her stitches when the heads fall from the

guillotine into the basket."

"If I did tremble, and my eyelashes did quiver, I would dash my own

fists into my eyes!" said Madame Simon, with her hard coarse voice,

rising and throwing her thin, threadbare cloak over her shoulders.

"If I found a spark of sympathy in my heart, I would inundate it

with the blood of aristocrats till it should be extinguished, and

till that should be, I would despise and hate myself, for I should

be not only a bad patriot, but a bad daughter of my unfortunate

father. The cursed aristocrats have not only brought misery on our

country and people, but they murdered my dear good father. Yes,

murdered I say. They said he was a high traitor. And do you know

why? Because he told aloud the nice stories about the Austrian

woman, who was then our queen, which, had been whispered into his

ear, and because he said that the king was a mere tool in the hands

of his wife. They shot my good, brave father for what he had said,

and which they called treason, although it was only the naked truth.

Yet I will not work myself into a passion about it, and I will only

thank God that that time is past, and I will do my part that it

shall not come back. And that is why we must be awake and on our

guard, that no aristocrat and no loyalist tie left, but that they

all be guillotined, all! There, take your place on my chair, and

take my knitting-work. Ah! if it could speak to you as it does to

me--if it could tell you what heads we two have seen fall, young and

old, handsome, distinguished--it would be fine sport for you and

make you laugh. But good-by just now! Keep a strict lookout! I shall

come back soon."

And she did come back soon, this worthy woman, with triumphant

bearing and flashing eyes, looking as the cat looks when it has a

mouse in its soft velvety paws, and is going to push its poisonous

claws into the quivering flesh. She took her knitting-work up and

bade Tison to go up again to her post.

"And when you can," she said, "just touch the Austrian woman a

little, and pay her off for being so many hours unwatched. In that

way you will merit a reward from the people, and that is as well as

deserving one of God. Provoke her--provoke the proud Austrian!"

"It is very hard to do it," said Tison, sighing--"very hard, I

assure you, for the Austrian is very cold and moderate of late.

Since Louis Capet died, the widow is very much changed, and now she

is so uniform in her temper that it seems as if nothing would

provoke or excite her."

"What weak and tender creatures you all are!" said Simon's wife,

with a shrug. "It is very plain that they fed you on milk when you

were young. But my mother nursed me with hate. I was scarcely ten

years when they shot my father, and not a day passed after that

without my mother's telling me that we must avenge his murder on the

whole lineage of the king. I had to swear that I would do it. She

gave me, for my daily food, hatred against the aristocrats; it was

the meat to my sauce, the sugar to my coffee, the butter to my

bread! I lived and throve upon it. Look at me, and see what such

fare has made of me! Look at me! I am not yet twenty-four years old,

and yet I have the appearance of an old woman, and I have the

feeling and the experience of an old woman! Nothing moves me now,

and the only thing that lives and burns in my heart is revenge.

Believe me, were I in your place I should know how to exasperate the

Austrian; I should succeed in drawing out her tears."

"Well, and how would you begin? Really, I should like to know how to

bring this incarnation of pride to weeping."

"Has not she children?" asked Madame Simon, with a horrible

calmness. "I would torture and provoke the children, and that would

soon make the heart of the woman humble and pliable. Oh, she may

count herself happy that I am not in your place, and that her

children are not under my tender hands. But if it ever happens that

I can lay my fingers upon the shoulders of the little wolves, I will

give them something that will make them cry out, and make the old

wolf howl with rage. I will show her as little favor then as she

showed when my poor mother and I were begging for my dear father! Go

up, go up and try at once. Plague the children, and you will see

that that will make the Austrian pliable."

"That is fine talk," muttered Tison, as she went up the staircase,

"but she has no children, while I have a daughter, a dear, good

daughter. She is not with me, but with my mother in Normandy,

because she can be taken better care of there than here. It is

better for the good child that she has not gone through these evil

days full of blood and grief with us. But I am always thinking of

her, and when one of these two children here looks up to me so

gravely with great, open eyes, it always makes me think of my

Solonge. She has exactly such large, innocent eyes, and that touches

my heart so that I cannot be harsh with the children. They, of

course, are not at all to blame for having such bad, miserable

parents, who have treated the people shamefully, and made them poor

and wretched. No, they have had nothing to do with it, and I cannot

be severe with the children, for I am always thinking of my little

Solonge! I will provoke the Austrian woman as much as I can, but not

the children--no, not the children!"

Meanwhile, Mistress Simon had taken her place upon the chair near

the open door in the porter's lodge, and sat there with her cold,

immovable face staring into empty space with her great coal-black,

glistening eyes, while her hands were busily flying, making the

polished knitting-needles click against each other.

She was still sitting there, when at last her husband came down the

stairs to open the outer door of the Temple, conduct his friends

past the inner court, and to bring back the two officials who were

to keep guard during the night.

They passed the knitter with a friendly salutation and a bit of

pleasantry--Toulan stopping a moment to ask the woman after her

welfare, and to say a few smooth words to her about her courage and

her great force of character.

She listened quietly, let him go on with his talk, and when he had

ended, slowly raised her great eyes from her knitting to him.

"You are a traitor," she said, with coldness, and without any

agitation. "Yes, you are a traitor, and you, too, will have your

turn at the guillotine!"

Toulan paled a little, but collected himself immediately, took leave

of the knitter with a smile, and hastened after the officials, who

were waiting for him at the open door--the two who were to hold the

watch during the night having already entered.

Simon closed the door after them, exchanged a few words with them,

and then went into his lodge to join his rigid better half.

"This has been a pleasant afternoon, and it is a great pity that it

is gone, for I have had a very good time. We have played cards,

sung, smoked, and Toulan has made jokes and told stories, and made

much fun. I always wonder where he gets so many fine stories, and he

tells them so well that I could hear him day and night. Now that he

is gone, it seems tedious and dull enough here. Well, we must

comfort ourselves that to-morrow will come by and by."

"What do you mean by that?" asked his wife, sternly.

"What sort of a day do you expect to-morrow to be?"

"A pleasant day, my dear Heloise, for Citizen Toulan will have the

watch again. I begged him so long, that he at last promised to

exchange with Citizen Pelletan, whose turn regularly comes to-

morrow. Pelletan is not well, and it would be very hard for him to

sit up there all day, and, besides, he would be dreadfully stupid.

It is a great deal pleasanter to have Toulan here with his jokes and

jolly stories, and so I begged him to come and take Pelletan's

place. He is going to accommodate me and come."

His wife did not answer a word, but broke out in a burst of shrill,

mocking laughter, and with her angry black eyes she scrutinized her

husband's red, bloated face, as though she were reading him through

and through.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, angrily. "I would like to be

beyond hearing when you give way in that style. What are you

laughing at?"

"Because I wonder at you, you Jack," she answered sharply. "Because

you are determined to make an ass of yourself, and let dust be

thrown in your eyes, and put yourself at the disposal of every one

who soaps you over with smooth words."

"Come," said Simon, "none of that coarseness! and if you--"

"Hist!" she answered, commandingly. "I will show you at once that I

have told you the truth, and that you are making an ass of yourself,

or at least that you are on the point of doing so. Now, listen."

The knitter laid her work aside, and had a long conversation in a

whisper with her husband. When it ended, Simon stood up wearing a

dark look, and walked slowly backward and forward in the little

room. Then he stopped and shook his fist threateningly at the room

above. "She shall pay for this," he muttered--" by God in heaven!

she shall pay for this. She is a good-for-nothing seducer! Even in

prison she does not leave off coquetting, and flirting, and turning

the heads of the men! It is disgraceful, thoroughly disgraceful, and

she shall pay for it! I will soon find means to have my revenge on

her!"

During the whole evening Mistress Tison did not leave her place

behind the glass door for a moment, and at each stolen glance which

the queen cast thither she always encountered the malicious, glaring

eyes of the keeper, directed at her with an impudent coolness.

At last came the hour of going to bed--the hour to which the queen

looked impatiently forward. At night she was at least alone and

unguarded. After the death of the king, it had been found

superfluous to trouble the officials with the wearisome night-

watches, and they were satisfied, after darkness had set in and the

candles were lighted, with locking the three doors which led to the

inner rooms.

Did Marie Antoinette weep and moan at night, did she talk with her

sister, did she walk disconsolately up and down her room?--the

republic granted her the privilege. She could, during the night at

least, have a few hours of freedom and of solitude.

But during the night Marie Antoinette did not weep or moan; this

night her thoughts were not directed to the sad past, but to the

future; for the first ray of hope which had fallen upon her path for

a long time now encountered her.

"To escape, to be free!" she said, and the shadow of a smile flitted

over her face. "Can you believe it? Do you consider it possible,

sister?"

"I should like to believe it," whispered Elizabeth, "but there is

something in my heart that reminds me of Varennes, and I only pray

to God that He would give us strength to bear all the ills they

inflict upon us. We must, above all things, keep our calmness and

steadfastness, and be prepared for the worst as well as the best."

"Yes, you are right, we must do that," said Marie Antoinette,

collecting herself. "When one has suffered as we have, it is almost

more difficult to hope for good fortune than to prepare for new

terrors. I will compel myself to be calm. I will read Toulan's plan,

once more, and will impress it word for word upon my memory, so as

to burn the dangerous sheet as soon as possible."

"And while you are doing that I will unwind the ball that Toulan

brought us, and which certainly contains something heavy," said the

princess.

"What a grand, noble heart! what a lofty character has our friend

Toulan!" whispered the queen. "His courage is inexhaustible, his

fidelity is invincible, and he is entirely unselfish. How often have

I implored him to express one wish to me that I might gratify, or to

allow me to give him a draft of some amount! He is not to be shaken-

-he wants nothing, he will take nothing. Ah, Elizabeth, he is the

first friend, of all who ever drew toward me, who made no claims and

was contented with a kind word. When I implored him yesterday to

tell me in what way I could do him a service, he said: 'If you want

to make me happy, regard me always as your most devoted and faithful

servant, and give me a name that you give to no one besides. Call me

Fidele, and if you want to give me another remembrancer than that

which will always live in my heart, present me, as the highest token

of your favor, with the little gold smelling-bottle which I saw you

use in the Logograph box on that dreadful day.' I gave him the

trinket at once. He kneeled down in order to receive it, and when he

kissed my hand his hot tears fell upon it. Ah, Elizabeth, no one of

those to whom in the days of our happiness I gave jewels, and to

whom I gave hundreds of thousands, cherished for me so warm thanks

as Toulan--no, as Fidele--for the poor, insignificant little

remembrancer."

"God is good and great," said the princess, who, while the queen was

speaking, was busily engaged in unwinding the thread; "in order that

we might not lose faith in humanity and confidence in man, He sent

us in His mercy this noble, true-hearted one, whose devotion,

disinterestedness, and fidelity were to be our compensation for all

the sad and heart-rending experiences which we have endured. And,

therefore, for the sake of this one noble man let us pardon the many

from whom we have received only injury; for it says in the Bible

that, for the sake of one righteous man, many sinners shall be

forgiven, and Toulan is a righteous man."

"Yes, he is a righteous man, blessings on him!" whispered the queen.

Then she took the paper in her hand, and began to read the contents

softly, repeating every sentence to herself, and imprinting every

one of those hope-bringing words upon her memory; and while she

read, her poor, crushed heart gradually began to beat with firmer

confidence, and to embrace the possibility of realizing the plan of

Toulan and finding freedom in flight.

During this time Princess Elizabeth had unwound the thread of the

ball, and brought to light a little packet enveloped in paper.

"Take it, my dear Antoinette," she said, "it is addressed to you."

Marie Antoinette took it and carefully unfolded the paper. Then she

uttered a low, carefully-suppressed cry, and, sinking upon her

knees, pressed it with its contents to her lips.

"What is it, sister?" cried the princess, hurrying to her. "What

does Toulan demand?"

The queen gave the paper to the princess. "Read," she said--"read

it, sister."

Elizabeth read: "Your majesty wished to possess the relics which

King Louis left to you. They consist of the wedding-ring of his

majesty, his little seal, and the hair which the king himself cut

off. These three things lay on the chimney-piece in the closed

sitting-room of the king. The supervisor of the Temple took them

from Clery's hand, to whom the king gave them, and put them under

seal. I have succeeded in getting into the sitting-room; I have

opened the sealed packet, taken out the sacred relics, put articles

of similar character in their place, and sealed it up again. With

this letter are the relics which belong to your majesty, and I swear

by all that is sacred and dear to me--I swear by the head of my

queen, that they are the true articles which the blessed martyr,

King Louis XVI., conveyed to his wife in his testament. I have

stolen them for the exalted heir of the crown, and I shall one day

glory in the theft before the throne of God." [Footnote: Goncourt, "

Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 384.]

"See, Elizabeth," said the queen, unfolding the little things, each

one of which was carefully wrapped in paper--"see, there is his

wedding-ring. There on the inside are the four letters, 'M. A. A.

A., 19th April, 1770.' The day of our marriage!--a day of joy for

Austria as well as for France! Then--but I will not think of it. Let

me look further. Here is the seal! The cornelian engraved on two

sides. Here on one side the French arms; as you turn the stone, the

portrait of our son the Dauphin of France, with his helmet on his

head. Oh! my son, my poor dear child, will your loved head ever bear

any other ornament than a martyr's crown; will God grant you to wear

the helmet of the warrior, and to battle for your rights and your

throne? How pleased my husband was when on his birthday I brought

him this seal! how tenderly his looks rested upon the portrait of

his son, his successor! and now--oh, now! King Louis XVI. cruelly,

shamefully murdered, and he who ought to be the King of France,

Louis XVII., is nothing but a poor, imprisoned child--a king without

a crown, without hope, without a future!"

"No, no, Antoinette," whispered Elizabeth, who had kneeled before

the queen and had tenderly put her arms around her--" no,

Antoinette, do not say that your son has no hope and no future.

Build upon God, hope that the undertaking which we are to-morrow to

execute will lead to a fortunate result, that we shall flee from

here, that we shall be free, that we shall be able to reach England.

Oh, yes, let us hope that Toulan's fine and bold plan will succeed,

and then it may one day be that the son of my dear brother, grown to

be a young man, may put the helmet on his head, gird himself with

the sword, reconquer the throne of his fathers, and take possession

of it as King Louis XVII. Therefore let us hope, sister."

"Yes, therefore let us hope" whispered the queen, drying her tears.

"And here at last," she continued, opening the remaining paper,

"here is the third relic, the hair of the king! --the only thing

which is left us of the martyr king, the unfortunate husband of an

unfortunate wife, the pitiable king of a most pitiable people! Oh,

my king! they have laid your poor head that bore this white hair--

they have laid it upon the scaffold, and the axe, the dreadful axe--

"

The queen uttered a loud shriek of horror, sprang up, and raised

both her hands in conjuration to Heaven, while a curse just trembled

on her lips. But Princess Elizabeth threw herself into her arms, and

pressed on the cold, quivering lips of the queen a long, fervent

kiss.

"For God's sake, sister," she whispered, "speak softly. If Tison

heard your cry, we are lost. Hush! it seems to me I hear steps, hide

the things. Let us hurry into bed. Oh, for God's sake, quick!"

She huddled the papers together, and put them hastily into her

bosom, while Marie Antoinette, gathering up the relics, dashed into

her bed.

"She is coming," whispered Elizabeth, as she slipped into her bed.

"We must pretend to be asleep."

And in fact Princess Elizabeth was right. The glass-door, which led

from the sleeping-room of the children to the little corridor, and

from there to the chamber of Mistress Tison, was slowly and

cautiously opened, and she came with a lamp in her hand into the

children's room. She stood near the door, listening and spying

around. In the beds of the children she could hear the long-drawn,

calm breathing, which indicated peaceful slumbers; and in the open,

adjoining apartment, in which the two ladies slept, nothing was

stirring.

"But I did hear a sound plainly," muttered Tison. "I was awaked by a

loud cry, and when I sat up in bed I heard people talking."

She stole to the beds of the children, and let the light fall upon

their faces. "They are sleeping soundly enough," she muttered, "they

have not cried or spoken, but we will see how it is in the other

room." Slowly, with the lamp in her hand, she crept into the

neighboring apartment. The two ladies lay motionless upon their

beds, closing their eyes quickly when Mistress Tison crossed the

threshold, and praying to God for courage and steadfastness.

Tison went first to the bed of Princess Elizabeth and let the lamp

fall full upon her face. The glare seemed to awaken her. "What is

it?" she cried, "what has happened? sister, what has happened? where

are you, Marie Antoinette?"

"Here, here I am, Elizabeth," cried the queen, rising suddenly up in

bed, as if awakened. "Why do you call me, and who is here?"

"It is I," muttered Tison, angrily. "That is the way if one has a

bad conscience! One is startled then with the slightest sound."

"We have no bad conscience," said Elizabeth, gently, "but you know

that if we are awakened from sleep we cry out easily, and we might

be thinking that some one was waking us to bring us happy tidings."

"I hope so," cried Tison, with a scornful laugh, "Happy news for

you! that means unhappy and sad news for France and for the French

people. No, thank God! I did not waken you to bring you any good

news."

"Well," said the queen, gently, "tell us why you have wakened us and

what you have to communicate to us."

"I have nothing at all to communicate to you," growled Tison, "and

you know best whether I wake you or you were already awake, talking

and crying aloud. Hist! it is not at all necessary that you answer,

I know well enough that you are capable of lying. I tell you my ears

are open and my eyes too. I let nothing escape me; you have talked

and you have cried aloud, and if it occurs again I shall report it

to the supervisor and have a watch put here in the night again, that

the rest of us may have a little quiet in the night-time, and not

have to sleep like the hares, with our eyes open."

"But," said the princess gently, "but dear woman--"

"Hush!" interrupted Tison, commandingly, "I am not your 'dear

woman,' I am the wife of Citizen Tison, and I want none of your

confidence, for confidence from such persons as you are, might

easily bring me to the scaffold."

She now passed through the whole room with her slow, stealthy tread,

let the light fall upon every article of furniture and the floor,

examined all the objects that lay upon the table, and then, after

one last threatening look at the beds of the two ladies, went slowly

out. She stopped again at the cribs of the children, and looked at

them with a touch of gentleness. "How quietly they sleep!" the

whispered. "They lie there exactly as they lay before. One would

think they were smiling in their sleep--I suppose they are playing

with angels. I should like to know how angels come into this old,

horrid Temple, and what Simon's wife would say if she knew they came

in here at night without her permission. See, see," she continued,

"the boy is laughing again, and spreading out his hands, as if he

wanted to catch the angels. Ah! I should like to know if my dear

little Solange is sleeping as soundly as these children, and whether

she smiles in her sleep and plays with angels; I should like to know

if she dreams of her parents, my dear little Solange, and whether

she sometimes sees her poor mother, who loves her so and yearns

toward her so tenderly that" [Footnote: This Mistress Tison, the

cruel keeper of the queen, soon after this fell into lunacy, owing

both to her longings after her daughter and her compunctions of

conscience for her treatment of the queen. The first token of her

insanity was her falling upon her knees before Marie Antoinette, and

begging pardon for all the pain she had occasioned, and amid floods

of tears accusing herself as the one who would be answerable for the

death of the queen. She then fell into such dreadful spasms, that

four men were scarcely able to hold her. They carried her into the

Hotel Dieu, where she died after two days of the most dreadful

sufferings and bitter reproaches of herself.--See Goncourt, p. 280.

]

She could not go on; tears extinguished her utterance, and she

hastened out, to silence her longings on the pillow of her bed.

The ladies listened a long time in perfect silence; then, when every

thing was still again, they raised themselves up softly, and began

to talk to each other in the faintest of whispers, and to make their

final preparations for the flight of the morrow. They then rose and

drew from the various hiding-places the garments which they were to

use, placed the various suits together, and then tried to put them

on. A fearful, awful picture, such as a painter of hell, such as

Breugel could not surpass in horror!--a queen and a princess, two

tender, pale, harmless women, busied, deep in the night, as if

dressing for a masquerade, in transforming themselves into those

very officials who had led the king to the scaffold, and who, with

their pitiless iron hands, were detaining the royal family in

prison!

There they stood, a queen, a princess, clad in the coarse,

threadbare garments of republican officials, the tri-colored sashes

of the "one indivisible republic" around their bodies, their heads

covered with the three-cornered hats, on which the tri-colored

cockade glittered. They stood and viewed each other with sad looks

and heavy sighs. Ah, what bright, joyous laughter would have sprung

from the lips of the queen in the days of her happiness, if she had

wanted to hide her beauty in such attire for some pleasant

masquerade at Trianon! What charming sport it would have been then

and there! How would her friends and courtiers have laughed! How

they would have admired the queen in her original costume, which

might well have been thought to belong to the realm of dreams and

fantasies! A tri-colored cockade--a figment of the brain--a tri-

colored sash--a merry dream! The lilies rule over France, and will

rule forever!

No laughter resounded in the desolate room, scantily lighted with

the dim taper--no laughter as the queen and the princess put on

their strange, fearful attire. It was no masquerade, but a dreadful,

horrible reality; and as they looked at each other wearing the

costume of revolutionists, tears started from the eyes of the queen;

the princess folded her hands and prayed; and she too could not keep

back the drops that slowly coursed over her cheeks.

The lilies of France are faded and torn from the ground! From the

palace of the Tuileries waved the tri-color of the republic, and in

the palace of the former Knights Templars is a pale, sad woman, with

gray hair and sunken eyes, a broken heart, and a bowed form. This

pale, sad shadow of the past is Marie Antoinette, once the Queen of

France, the renowned beauty, the first woman in a great kingdom, now

the widow of an executed man, she herself probably with one foot--

No, no, she will be saved! God has sent her a deliverer, a friend,

and this friend, this helper in her need, has made every thing ready

for her flight.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SEPARATION.

Slowly and heavily the hours of the next day rolled on. Where was

Toulan? Why did he not come? The queen waited for him the whole of

that long, dreadful day in feverish expectation. She listened to

every sound, to every approaching step, to every voice that echoed

in the corridor. At noon Toulan had purposed to come to take his

post as guard. At six, when the time of lighting the lamps should

arrive, the disguises were to be put on. At seven the carefully and

skilfully-planned flight was to be made.

The clock in the tower of the Temple had already struck four. Toulan

had not yet come, and the guards of the day had not yet been

relieved. They had had a little leisure at noon for dinner, and

during the interim Simon and Tison were on guard, and had kept the

queen on the rack with their mockery and their abusive words. In

order to avoid the language and the looks of these men, she had fled

into the children's room, to whom the princess, in her trustful

calmness and unshaken equanimity, was assigning them lessons. Marie

Antoinette wanted to find protection here from the dreadful anxiety

that tortured her, as well as from the ribald jests and scurrility

of her keepers. But Mistress Tison was there, standing near the

glass window, gazing in with a malicious grin, and working in her

wonted, quick way upon the long stocking, and knitting, knitting, so

that you could hear the needles click together.

The queen could not give way to a word or a look. That would have

created suspicion, and would, perhaps, have caused an examination to

be made. She had to bear all in silence, she had to appear

indifferent and calm; she had to give pleasant answers to the

dauphin's innocent questions, and even compel a smile to her lips

when the child, reading in her looks, by the instinct of love, her

great excitement, tried to cheer her up with pleasant words.

It struck five, and still Toulan did not come. A chill crept over

her heart, and in the horror which filled her she first became

conscious how much love of life still survived in her, and how

intensely she had hoped to find a possibility of escape.

Only one last hour of hope left! If it should strike six, and he

should not come, all would be lost! The doors of her prison would be

closed forever--never opening again excepting to allow Marie

Antoinette to pass to the guillotine.

Mistress Tison had gone, and her cold, mocking face was no longer

visible behind the glass door. The guards in the anteroom had also

gone, and had closed the doors behind them. The queen was,

therefore, safe from being watched at least! She could fall upon her

knees, she could raise her hands to God and wrestle with Him in

speechless prayer for pity and deliverance. She could call her

children to herself, and press them to her heart, and whisper to

them that they must be composed if they should see something

strange, and not wonder if they should have to put on clothing that

they were not accustomed to.

"Mamma," asked the dauphin, in a whisper, "are we going to Varennes

again?"

The queen shuddered in her inmost soul at this question, and hid her

quivering face on the faithful breast of the princess.

"Oh, sister, I am suffocating with anxiety," she said. "I feel that

this hour is to decide the lives of us all, and it seems to me as if

Death were already stretching out his cold hand toward me. We are

lost, and my son, my unhappy son, will never wear any other than the

martyr's crown, and--"

The queen was silent, for just then the tower-clock began to strike,

slowly, peacefully, the hour of six! The critical moment! The

lamplight must come now! If it were Toulan, they might be saved.

Some unforeseen occurrence might have prevented his coming before;

he might have borrowed the suit of the bribed lamplighter in order

to come to them. There was hope still--one last, pale ray of hope!

Steps upon the corridor! Voices that are audible!

The queen, breathless, with both hands laid upon her heart, which

was one instant still, and then beat with redoubled rapidity,

listened with strained attention to the opening of the door of the

anteroom. Princess Elizabeth approached her, and laid her hand on

the queen's shoulder. The two children, terrified by some cause

which they could not comprehend, clung to the hand and the body of

their mother, and gazed anxiously at the door.

The steps came nearer, the voices became louder. The door of the

anteroom is opened--and there is the lamp-lighter. But it is not

Toulan--no, not Toulan! It is the man who comes every day, and the

two children, are with him as usual.

A heavy sigh escaped from the lips of the queen, and, throwing her

arms around the dauphin with a convulsive motion, she murmured:

"My son, oh, my dear son! May God take my life if He will but spare

thine!"

Where was Toulan? Where had he been all this dreadful day? "Where

was Fidele the brave, the indefatigable?

On the morning of the day appointed for the flight, he left his

house, taking a solemn leave of his Marguerite. At this parting hour

he told her for the first time that he was going to enter upon the

great and exalted undertaking of freeing the queen and her children,

or of dying for them. His true, brave young wife had suppressed her

tears and her sighs to give him her blessing, and to tell him that

she would pray for him, and that if he should perish in the service

of the queen, she would die too, in order to be united with him

above.

Toulan kissed the beaming eyes of his Marguerite with deep fooling,

thanked her for her true-hearted resignation, and told her that he

had never loved her so much as in this hour when he was leaving her

to meet his death, it might be, in the service of another lady.

"At this hour of parting," he said, "I will give you the dearest and

most sacred thing that I possess. Take this little gold smelling-

bottle. The queen gave it to me, and upon the bit of paper that lies

within it Marie Antoinette wrote with her own hand, 'Remembrancer

for Fidele.'

Fiddle is the title of honor which my queen has given me for the

little service which I have been able to do for her. I leave this

little gift for you as that which, next to your love, is the most

sacred and precious thing to me on earth. If I die, preserve it for

our son, and give it to him on the day when he reaches his majority.

Tell him of the time when I made this bequest to him, in the hope

that he would make himself worthy of it, and live and die as a brave

son of his country, a faithful subject and servant of his king, who,

God willing, will be the son of Marie Antoinette. Tell him of his

father; say to him that I dearly loved you and him, but that I had

devoted my life to the service of the queen, and that I gave it

freely and gladly, in conformity with my oath. I have not told you

about these things before, dear Marguerite--not because I doubted

your fidelity, but because I did not want you to have to bear the

dreadful burden of expectation, and because I did not want to

trouble your noble soul with these things. And now I only tell you

this much: I am going away to try to save the queen. If I succeed, I

shall come back for a moment this evening at ten o'clock. If I

remain away, if you hear nothing from me during the whole night,

then--"

"Then what?" asked Marguerite, throwing her arms around him, and

looking into his face anxiously. "Say, what then?"

"Then I shall have died," he said, softly, "and our child will be an

orphan! Do not weep, Marguerite! Be strong and brave, show a

cheerful face to our neighbors, our friends, and the spies! But

observe every thing! Listen to every thing! Keep the outer door open

all the time, that I may be able to slip in at any moment. Have the

little secret door in my room open too, and the passageway down into

the cellar always free, that I may slip down there if need be. Be

ready to receive me at any time, to hide me, and, it may possibly

be, others who may come with me!"

"I shall expect you day and night," she whispered, "so long as I

live!"

"And now, Marguerite," he said, pressing her tenderly to his heart,

"one last kiss! Let me kiss your eyes, your beautiful dear eyes,

which have always glanced with looks of love, and which have always

given me new inspiration. Farewell, my dear wife, and God bless you

for your love and fidelity!"

"Do not go, my precious one! Come once more to the cradle of our boy

and give him a parting kiss!"

"No, Marguerite, that would unman me, and to-day I must be strong

and master of myself. Farewell, I am going to the Temple!"

And, without looking at his wife again, he hurried out into the

street, and turned his steps toward his destination. But just as he

was turning the very next corner Lepitre met him, pale, and

displaying great excitement in his face.

"Thank God!" he said, "thank God that I have found you. I wanted to

hasten to you. We must flee directly--all is discovered. Immediate

flight alone can save us!"

"What is discovered?" asked Toulan. "Speak, Lepitre, what is

discovered?"

"For God's sake, let us not be standing here on the streets!"

ejaculated Lepitre. "They have certainly sent out the constables to

arrest us. Let us go into this house here, it contains a passage

through to the next street. Now, listen! We are reported. Simon's

wife has carried our names to the Committee of Public Safety as

suspicious persons. Tison's wife has given out that the queen and

her sister-in-law have won us both over, and that through our means

she is kept informed about every thing that happens. The carpet-

manufacturer, Arnault, has just been publicly denouncing us both,

saying that Simon's wife has reported to him that we both have

conducted conversation with the prisoners in low tones of voice, and

have thereby been the means of conveying some kind of cheering

information to the queen. [Footnote: Literally reproduced here.--See

Concourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 290.] On that, our

names were stricken from the list of official guards at the Temple,

and we are excluded from the new ward committee that is forming to-

day."

"And is that all?" asked Toulan, calmly. "Is that all the bad news

that you bring? Then the projected flight is not discovered, is it?

Nothing positive is known against us? Nothing more is known than the

silly and unfounded denunciations of two old women?"

"For God's sake, do not use such idle words as these!" replied

Lepitre. "We are suspected, our names are stricken from the ward

list. Is not that itself a charge against us? And are not those who

come under suspicion always condemned? Do not laugh, Toulan, and

shake your head!

Believe me, we are lost if we do not flee; if we do not leave Paris

on the spot and conceal ourselves somewhere. I am firmly resolved on

this, and in an hour I shall have started, disguised as a sans-

culotte. Follow my example, my friend. Do not throw away your life

foolhardily. Follow me!"

"No," said Toulan, "I shall stay. I have sworn to devote my life to

the service of the queen, and I shall fulfil my oath so long as

breath remains in my body. I must not go away from here so long as

there is a possibility of assisting her. If flight is impracticable

to-day, it may be effected at some more favorable time, and I must

hold myself in readiness for it."

"But they will take you, I tell you," said Lepitre, with a downcast

air. "You will do no good to the queen, and only bring yourself to

harm."

"Oh, nonsense! they will not catch me so soon," said Toulan,

confidently. "Fortune always favors the bold, and I will show you

that I am brave. Go, my friend, save yourself, and may God give you

long life and a contented heart! Farewell, and be careful that they

do not discover you!"

"You are angry with me, Toulan," said Lepitre. "You consider me

cowardly. But I tell you, you are foolhardy, and your folly will

plunge you into destruction."

"I am not angry with you, Lepitre, and you shall not be with me.

Every one must do as best he can, and as his heart and his head

dictate to him. One is not the better for this, and another the

worse. Farewell, my friend! Take care for your own safety, for it is

well that some faithful ones should still remain to serve the queen,

and I know that you will serve her when she needs your help."

"Then give me your hand in parting, my friend. And if at last you

come to the conclusion to flee, come to Normandy, and in the village

of Lerne, near Dieppe, you will find me, and my father will receive

you, and you shall be treated as if you were my brother."

"Thanks, my friend, thanks! One last shake of the hand. There! Now

you are away, and I remain here."

Toulan went out into the street, walked along with a cheerful face,

and repaired at once to the hall where the Committee of Safety were

sitting.

"Citizens and brothers," he said, in aloud, bold voice, "I have just

been informed that I have been brought under suspicion and

denounced. Friends have warned me to betake to flight. But I am no

coward, I have no bad conscience, and therefore do not fly, but come

here and ask you is this true? Is it possible that you regard me as

no patriot, and as a traitor?"

"Yes," answered President Hobart, with a harsh, hard voice, "you are

under suspicion, and we mistrust you. This shameful seducer, this

she-wolf Marie Antoinette has cast her foxy eyes upon you, and would

doubtless succeed if you are often with her. We have therefore once

for all taken your name from the list of the official guards in the

Temple, and you will no longer be exposed to the wiles of the

Austrian woman. But besides this, as the second denunciation has

been made against you to-day, and as it is asserted that you are in

relations with aristocrats and suspected persons, we have considered

it expedient, in view of the common safety, to issue a warrant for

your apprehension. An officer has just gone with two soldiers to

your house, to arrest you and bring you hither. You have simply

anticipated the course of law by surrendering yourself. Officer,

soldiers, here!"

The persons summoned appeared, and put Toulan under arrest,

preparatory to taking him to prison.

"It is well," said Toulan, with a noble calmness. "I know that the

time will come when you will regret having so abused a true patriot;

and I hope, for the peace of your consciences, that there will be a

time then to undo the evil which you are doing to me to-day, and

that my head will then be on my shoulders, that my lips may be able

to testify to you what my heart now dictates, that I forgive you!

You are in error about me, yet I know that you are acting not out of

enmity to me, but for the weal of the country, and out of love for

the great, united republic. As the true and tenderly loving son of

this noble, exalted mother, I forgive you for giving ear to my

unrighteous accusers, and, even if you shed my innocent blood, my

dying wish will be a blessing on the republic."

"Those are noble and excellent words," said Hobart, coldly. "But if

deeds speak in antagonism to words, we cannot let the latter beguile

us out of our sense, but we must give heed to justice."

"That is the one only thing that I ask," cried Toulan, brightly.

"Let justice be done, my brothers, and I shall very soon he free,

and shall come out from an investigation like a spotless lamb. I

make no resistance. Come, my friends, take me to prison! I only ask

for permission to be escorted first to my house, to procure a few

articles of clothing to use during my imprisonment. But I urge

pressingly that my articles may be sealed up in my presence. For

when the man of the house is not at home, it fares badly with the

safety of his property, and I shall be able to feel at ease only

when the seal of the republic is upon my possessions. I beg you

therefore to allow my paper and valuables to be sealed in my

presence. You will thus be sure that my wife and my friends have not

removed any thing which might be used against me, and my innocence

will shine out the more clearly. I beg you therefore to comply with

my wish."

The members of the committee consulted with one another in low

tones, and the chairman then announced to Toulan that his wish would

be complied with, and that an escort of soldiers might accompany him

to his house, to allow him to procure linen and clothing, and to

seal his effects and papers in their presence.

Toulan thanked them with cheerful looks, and went out into the

street between the two guards. As they were on the way to his house,

he talked easily with them, laughed and joked; but in his own

thoughts he said to himself, "You are lost! hopelessly lost, if you

do not escape now. You are the prey of the guillotine, if the gates

of the prison once close upon you; therefore escape, escape or die."

While he was thus laughing and talking with the soldiers, and

meanwhile thinking such solemn thoughts, his sharp black eyes were

glancing in all directions, looking for a friend who might assist

him out of his trouble. And fortune sent him such a friend!--Ricard,

Ionian's most trusted counsellor, the abettor of his plans. Toulan

called him with an animated face, and in loud tones told him that he

had been denounced, and therefore arrested; and that he was only

allowed to go to his house to procure some clothing.

"Come along, Ricard," he said. "They are going to put my effects

under seal, and you have some papers and books on my writing-table.

Come along, and take possession of your own things, so that they may

not be sealed up as mine."

Ricard nodded assent, and a significant look told Toulan that his

friend understood him, and that his meaning was, that Ricard should

take possession of papers that might bring Toulan under suspicion.

Continuing their walk, they spoke of indifferent matters, and at

last reached Toulan's house. Marguerite met them with calm bearing.

She knew that every cry, every expression of anxiety and trouble,

would only imperil the condition of her husband, and her love gave

her power to master herself.

"Ah! are you there, husband?" she said, with a smile, how hard to

her no one knew. "You are bringing a great deal of company."

"Yes, Marguerite," said Toulan, with a smile, "and I am going to

keep on with this pleasant company to prison."

"Oh!" she cried, laughing, "that is a good joke! Toulan, the best of

patriots, in prison! Come, you ought not to joke about serious

matters."

"It is no joke," said one of the guards, solemnly. "Citizen Toulan

is arrested, and is here only to procure some articles of clothing,

and have his effects put under seal."

"And to give back to his friend Ricard the books and papers that

belong to him," said Toulan. "Come, let us go into my study,

friends."

"There are my books and papers," cried Ricard, as they went into the

next room. He sprang forward to the writing-table, seized all the

papers lying upon it, and tried to thrust them into his coat-pocket.

But the two soldiers checked him, and undertook to resist his

movement. Ricard protested, a loud exchange of words took place--in

which Marguerite had her share--insisting that all the papers on the

table belonged to Ricard, and she should like to see the man who

could have the impudence to prevent his taking them.

Louder and louder grew the contention; and when Ricard was

endeavoring again to put the papers into his pocket, the two

soldiers rushed at him to prevent it. Marguerite tried to come to

his assistance, and in the effort, overthrew a little table which

stood in the middle of the room, on which was a water-bottle and

some glasses. The table came down, a rattle of broken glass

followed, and amid the noise and outcries, the controversy and

violence, no one paid attention to Toulan; no one saw the little

secret door quietly open, and Toulan glide from view.

The soldiers did not notice this movement, but Marguerite and Ricard

understood it well, and went on all the more eagerly with their

cries and contentions, to give Toulan time to escape by the secret

passage.

And they were successful. When the two guards had, after long

searching, discovered the secret door through which the escape had

been effected, and had rushed down the hidden stairway, not a trace

of him was to be seen.

Toulan was free! Unhindered, he hastened to the little attic, which

he had, some time before, hired in the house adjacent to the Temple,

put on a suit of clothes which he had prepared there, and remained

concealed the whole day.

As Marie Antoinette lay sleepless upon her bed in the night that

followed this vain attempt at flight, and was torturing herself with

anxious doubts whether Fidele had fallen a victim to his devotion,

suddenly the tones of a huntsman's horn broke the silence; Marie

Antoinette raised herself up and listened. Princess Elizabeth had

done the same; and with suspended breath they both listened to the

long-drawn and plaintive tones which softly floated in to them on

the wings of the night. A smile of satisfaction flitted over their

pale, sad faces, and a deep sigh escaped from their heavy hearts.

"Thank God! he is saved," whispered Marie Antoinette.

"Is not that the melody that was to tell us that our friend is in

the neighborhood?"

"Yes, sister, that is the one! So long as we hear this signal, we

shall know that Toulan is living still, and that he is near us."

And in the following weeks the prisoners of the Temple often had the

sad consolation of hearing the tones of Toulan's horn; but he never

came to them again, he never appeared in the anteroom to keep guard

over the imprisoned queen. Toulan did not flee! He had the courage

to remain in Paris; he was constantly hoping that an occasion might

arise to help the queen escape; he was constantly putting himself in

connection with friends for this object, and making plans for the

flight of the royal captives.

But exactly what Toulan hoped for stood as a threatening phantom

before the eyes of the Convention--the flight of the prisoners in

the Temple. They feared the queen even behind those thick walls,

behind the four iron doors that closed upon her prison! They feared

still more this poor child of seven years, this little king without

crown and without throne, the son of him who had been executed. The

Committee of Safety knew that people were talking about the little

king in the Temple, and that touching anecdotes about him were in

circulation. A bold, reckless fellow had appeared who called himself

a prophet, and had loudly announced upon the streets and squares,

that the lilies would bloom again, and that the sons of Brutus would

fall beneath the hand of the little king whose throne was in the

Temple. They had, it is true, arrested the prophet and dragged him

to the guillotine, but his prophecies had found an echo here and

there, and an interest in the little prince had been awakened in the

people. The noble and enthusiastic men known as the Girondists were

deeply solicitous about the young royal martyr, and the application

of this expression to the little dauphin, made in the earnest and

impassioned speeches before the Convention, melted all hearers to

tears and called out a deep sympathy.

The Convention saw the danger, and at once resolved to be free from

it. On the 1st of July 1793, that body issued a decree with the

following purport: "The Committee of Public Safety ordains that the

son of Capet be separated from his mother, and be delivered to an

instructor, whom the general director of the communes shall

appoint."

The queen had no suspicion of this. Now that Toulan was no longer

there, no news came to her of what transpired beyond the prison, and

Fidele's horn-signals were the only sounds of the outer world that

reached her ear.

The evening of the 3d of July had come. The little prince had gone

to bed, and had already sunk into a deep sleep. His bed had no

curtains, but Marie Antoinette had with careful hands fastened a

shawl to the wall, and spread it out over the bed in such a manner

that the glare of the light did not fall upon the closed eyes of the

child and disturb him in his peaceful slumbers. It was ten o'clock

in the evening, and the ladies had that day waited unwontedly long

before going to bed. The queen and Princess Elizabeth were busied in

mending the clothing of the family, and Princess Theresa, sitting

between the two, had been reading to them some chapters out of the

Historical Dictionary. At the wish of the queen, she had now taken a

religious book, Passion Week, and was reading some hymns and prayers

out of it.

Suddenly, the quick steps of several men were heard in the corridor.

The bolts flew back, the doors were opened, and six officials came

in.

"We are come," cried one of them, with a brutal voice, "to announce

to you the order of the committee, that the son of Capet be

separated from his mother and his family."

At these words the queen rose, pale with horror "They are going to

take my child from me!" she cried. "No, no, that is not possible.

Gentlemen, the authorities cannot think of separating me from my

son. He is still so young and weak, he needs my care."

"The committee has come to this determination," answered the

official, "the Convention has confirmed it, and we shall carry it

into execution directly."

"I cannot allow it," cried Marie Antoinette in desperation. "In the

name of Heaven, I conjure you not to be so cruel!"

Elizabeth and Theresa mingled their tears with those of the mother.

All three had placed themselves before the bed of the dauphin; they

clung to it, they folded their hands, they sobbed; the most touching

cries, the most humble prayers trembled on their lips, but the

guards were not at all moved.

"What is all this whining for?" they said. "No one is going to kill

your child; give him to us of your own free will, or we shall have

to take him by force."

They strode up to the bed. Marie Antoinette placed herself with

extended arms before it, and held the curtain firmly; it however

detached itself from the wall and fell upon the face of the dauphin.

He awoke, saw what was going on, and threw himself with loud shrieks

into the arms of the queen. "Mamma, dear Mamma, do not leave me!"

She pressed him trembling to her bosom, quieted him, and defended

him against the cruel hands that were reached out for him.

In vain, all in vain! The men of the republic have no compassion on

the grief of a mother! "By free will or by force he must go with

us."

"Then promise me at least that he shall remain in the tower of the

Temple, that I may see him every day."

"We have nothing to promise you, we have no account at all to give

you. Parbleu, how can you take on and howl so, merely because your

child is taken from you? Our children have to do more than that.

They have every day to have their heads split open with the balls of

the enemies that you have set upon them."

"My son is still too young to be able to serve his country," said

the queen, gently, "but I hope that if God permits it, he will some

day be proud to devote his life to Him."

Meanwhile the two princesses, urged on by the officials, had clothed

the gasping, sobbing boy. The queen now saw that no more hope

remained. She sank upon a chair, and summoning all her strength, she

called the dauphin to herself, laid her hands upon his shoulders,

and pale, immovable, with widely-opened eyes, whose burning lids

were cooled by no tear, she gazed upon the quivering face of the

boy, who had fixed his great blue eyes, swimming with tears, upon

the countenance of his mother.

"My child," said the queen, solemnly, "we must part. Remember your

duties when I am no more with you to remind you of them. Never

forget the good God who is proving you, and your mother who is

praying for you. Be good and patient, and your Father in heaven will

bless you."

She bent over, and with her cold lips pressed a kiss upon the

forehead of her son, then gently pushed him toward the turnkey. But

the boy sprang back to her again, clung to her with his arms, and

would not go.

"My son, we must obey. God wills it so." A loud, savage laugh was

heard. Shuddering, the queen turned around. There at the open door

stood Simon, and with him his wife, their hard features turned

maliciously toward the pale queen. The woman stretched out her

brown, bare arms to the child, grasped him, and pushed him before

her to the door.

"Is she to have him?" shrieked Marie Antoinette. "Is my son to

remain with this woman?"

"Yes," said Simon, with a grinning smile, as he put himself, with

his arms akimbo, before the queen--" yes, with this woman and with

me, her husband, little Capet is to remain, and I tell you he shall

receive a royal education. We shall teach him to forget the past,

and only to remember that he is a child of the one and indivisible

republic. If he does not come to it, he must be brought to it, and

my old cobbler's straps will be good helpers in this matter."

He nodded at Marie Antoinette with a fiendish smile, and then

followed the officials, who had already gone out. The doors were

closed again, the bolts drawn, and within the chamber reigned the

stillness of death. The two women put their arms around one another,

kneeled upon the floor and prayed.

From this day on, Marie Antoinette had no hope more; her heart was

broken. Whole days long she sat fixed and immovable, without paying

any regard to the tender words of her sister-in-law and the caresses

of her daughter, without working, reading, or busying herself in any

way. Formerly she had helped to put the rooms in order, and mend the

clothes and linen; now she let the two princesses do this alone and

serve her.

Only for a few hours each day did her countenance lighten at all,

and the power of motion return to this pale, marble figure. Those

were the hours when she waited for her son, as he went with Simon

every day to the upper story and the platform of the tower. She

would then put her head to the door and listen to every step and all

the words that he directed to the turnkey as he passed by.

Soon she discovered a means of seeing him. There was a little crack

on the floor of the platform on which the boy walked. The world

revolved for the queen only around this little crack, and the

instant in which she could see her boy.

At times, too, a compassionate guard who had to inspect the prison

brought her tidings of her son, told her that he was well, that he

had learned to play ball, and that by his friendly nature he won

every one's love. Then Marie Antoinette's countenance would lighten,

a smile would play over her features and linger on her pale lips as

long as they were speaking of her boy. But oh! soon there came other

tidings about the unhappy child. His wailing tones, Simon's threats,

and his wife's abusive words penetrated even the queen's apartments,

and filled her with the anguish of despair. And yet it was not the

worst to hear him cry, and to know that the son of the queen was

treated ill; it was still more dreadful to hear him sing with a loud

voice, accompanied by the laugh and the bravoes of Simon and his

wife, revolutionary and obscene songs--to know that not only his

body but his soul was doomed to destruction.

At first the queen, on hearing these dreadful songs, broke out into

lamentations, cries, and loud threats against those who were

destroying the soul of her child. Then a gradual paralysis crept

over her heart, and when, on the 3d of August, she was taken from

the Temple to the prison, the pale lips of the queen merely

whispered,

"Thank God, I shall not have to hear him sing any more!"

BOOK V.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.

The Bartholomew's night of the murderous Catharine de Medicis, and

her mad son, Charles IX., now found in France its horrible and

bloody repetition; but the night of horror which we are now to

contemplate was continued on into the day, and did not shrink even

before the light.

The sun shone down upon the streams of blood which flowed through

the streets of Paris, and upon the pack of wild dogs that swarmed in

uncounted numbers on the thoroughfares of the city, and lived on

this blood, which gave back even to the tame their natural wildness.

The sun shone down upon the scaffold, that rose like a threatening

monster upon the Place de la Revolution, and upon the dreadful axe

which daily severed so many noble forms, and then rose from the

block glittering and menacing.

The sun shone on that day, too, when Marie Antoinette ascended the

scaffold, as her husband had done before, and so passed to her rest,

from all the pains and humiliations of her last years.

That day was the 16th of October, 1793. For four months Marie

Antoinette looked forward to it as to a joyful deliverance. It was

four months from the time when she was transferred from the Temple

to the prison, and she knew that those who were confined in the

latter place only left it to gain the freedom, not that man gives,

but which God grants to the suffering--the freedom of death!

Marie Antoinette longed for the deliverance. How far behind her now

lay the days of her happy, joyous youth! how long ago the time when

the tall, grave woman, her face full of pride and yet of

resignation, had been charming Marie Antoinette, the very

impersonation of beauty, youth, and love, carrying out in Trianon

the idyl of romantic country life--in the excess of her gayety going

disguised to the public opera-house ball, believing herself so safe

amid the French people that she could dispense with the protection

of etiquette--hailed with an enthusiastic admiration then, as she

was now saluted with the savage shouts of the enraged people!

No, the former queen, Marie Antoinette, who, in the gilded saloons

of Versailles and in the Tuileries, had received the homage of all

France, and with a smiling face and perfect grace of manner

acknowledged all the tribute that was brought to her, had no longer

any resemblance to the widow of Louis Capet, sitting before the

revolutionary tribunal, and giving earnest answers to the questions

which were put to her. She arranged her toilet that day--but how

different was the toilet of the Widow Capet from that which Queen

Marie Antoinette had once displayed! At that earlier time, she, the

easy, light-hearted daughter of fortune, had shut herself up for

hours with her intimate companion, Madame Berthier, the royal

milliner, planning a new ball-dress, or a new fichu; or her Leonard

would lavish all the resources of his fancy and his art inventing

new styles of head-dress, now decorating the beautiful head of the

queen with towering masses of auburn hair; now braiding it so as to

make it enfold little war-ships, the sails of which were finely

woven from her own locks; now laying out a garden filled with fruits

and flowers, butterflies and birds of paradise.

The "Widow Capet" needed no milliner and no hairdresser in making

her toilet. Her tall, slender figure was enveloped with the black

woollen dress which the republic had given her at her request, that

she might commemorate her deceased husband. Her neck and shoulders,

which had once been the admiration of France, was now concealed by a

white muslin kerchief, which her keeper Bault had given her out of

sympathy. Her hair was uncovered, and fell in long, natural locks on

both sides of her pale, transparent face. Her hair needed no powder

now; the long, sleepless nights and the sorrowful days have whitened

it more than any powder could do; and the widow of Louis Capet,

though but thirty-eight years old, had the gray locks of a woman of

seventy.

In this toilet Marie Antoinette appeared before the revolutionary

tribunal, from the 6th to the 13th of October. Nothing royal was

left about her but her look and her proud bearing.

The people, pressing in dense masses into the spectators' seats, did

not weary of seeing the queen in her humiliation and in her

mourning-robe, and constantly demanded that Marie Antoinette should

rise from the woven rush chair on which she was sitting, that she

should allow herself to be stared at by this throng, brought there

not out of compassion, but curiosity.

Once, as she rose in reply to the demand of the public, she was

heard to whisper, as to herself: "Ah, will this people not soon be

satisfied with my sufferings?" [Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own

words.--See Goncourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 404.] At

another time, her pale, dry lips murmured, "I am thirsty!" but no

one around her dared to have compassion on this cry of distress;

every one looked perplexed at the others, and no one dared give her

a glass of water. At last one of the gens d'armes ventured to do it,

and Marie Antoinette thanked him with a look that brought tears into

his eyes, and that perhaps caused him to fall on the morrow under

the guillotine as a traitor.

The gens d'armes who guarded the queen, they alone had the courage

to show her compassion. One night, when she was conducted from the

session-room to her prison, Marie Antoinette felt herself so

exhausted, so overcome, that she murmured to herself, as she

staggered on, "I cannot see, I cannot walk any farther." [Footnote:

Goncourt, p.416] The guard who was walking by her side gave her his

arm, and, supported by him, Marie Antoinette reeled up the stone

steps that led to her prison.

At last, in the night intervening between the 14th and 15th of

October, at four o'clock in the morning, her sentence was

pronounced--"Death! execution by the guillotine!"

Marie Antoinette received it with unshakable calmness, while the

tumult of the excited mob was hushed as by magic, and while many

faces even of the exasperated fish-wives grew pale!

Marie Antoinette remained calm; gravely and coldly she rose from her

seat, and with her own hands opened the balustrade in order to leave

the hall to return to her prison!

Finally, on the morning of the 16th of October, her sufferings were

allowed to end, and she was permitted to take refuge in the grave.

It almost made her joyful; she had suffered so much, that to die was

for her really blessedness.

She employed the still hours of the night before her death in

writing to her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, and her letter was

at the same time her testament. But the widow of Louis Capet had no

riches, no treasures to convey. She had nothing more that she could

call her own but her love, her tears, and her farewell greetings.

These she left to all who had loved her. She sent a special word to

her brothers and sisters, and bade them farewell.

"I had friends," she says, "and the thought that I am to be forever

separated from them, and their sorrow for me, is the most painful

thing in this hour; they shall at least know that I thought of them

to the last moment."

After Marie Antoinette had ended this letter, whose writing was here

and there blotted with her tears, she turned her thoughts to the

last remembrances she could leave to her children--a remembrance

which should not be profaned by the hand of the executioner. This

was her long hair, whose silver locks, the only ornament that

remained to her, was at the same time the sad record of her sorrows.

Marie Antoinette, with her own hands, despoiled herself of this

ornament, and cut off her long back-hair, that it might be a last

gift to her children, her relations, and friends. Then, after a

period of meditation, she prepared herself for the last great

ceremony of her career--her death. She felt herself exhausted, worn

out, and recognized her need of some physical support during the

hard way which lay before her. She asked for nourishment, and ate

with some relish the wing of a fowl that was brought to her. After

that she made her toilet--the toilet of death!

At the request of the queen, the wife of the turnkey gave her one of

her own chemises, and Marie Antoinette put it on. Then she arrayed

herself in the same garments which she had worn at her trial, with

this single change--that over the black woollen dress, which she had

often mended with her own hand, she now wore a cloak of white pique,

Around her neck she tied a simple kerchief of white muslin, and as

she would not be allowed to ascend the scaffold with uncovered head,

she put on a plain linen cap, such as was in general use among the

people. Black stockings covered her feet, and over these were shoes

of black woollen stuff.

Her toilet was at last ended; she was done with all earthly things!

Ready to meet her death, she lay down on her bed and slept.

She was still sleeping when it was announced to her that a priest

was there, ready to meet her, if she wanted to confess. But Marie

Antoinette had already unveiled her heart before God: she wanted

none of those priests of reason whom the republic had appointed

after it had banished or guillotined the priests of the Church.

"As I am not mistress of my own will," she had written to her sister

Elizabeth, "I shall have to submit if a priest is brought to me; but

I solemnly declare that I will not speak a word to him, and that I

shall treat him as a person with whom I wish to have no relations."

And Marie Antoinette kept her word; she did not refuse to allow

Geroid to enter; but when he asked her if she wished to receive the

consolations of religion from him, she declined.

Then, in order to warm her feet, which were cold, she walked up and

down her little room. As it struck seven the door opened. It was

Samson, the public executioner, who entered!

A slight thrill passed through the form of the queen.

"You have come very early, sir; could you not delay a little?" When

Samson denied her request, Marie Antoinette put on her calm, cold

manner. She drank, without resistance, a cup of chocolate which was

brought to her; she remained possessed, and wore her wonted air of

dignity as they bound her hands behind her with thick cords.

At eleven o'clock she left her room, passed through the corridor,

and ascended the car, which was waiting for her before the prison

door. No one accompanied her, no one bade her a last farewell, not a

look of pity or compassion was bestowed upon her by her keepers.

Alone, between the rows of gens d'armes that were placed along the

sides of the corridor, the queen advanced, Samson walking behind

her, carrying the end of the rope with which the queen's hands were

bound, and behind him his two assistants and the priest. This is the

retinue of the queen, the daughter of an emperor, on the way to her

execution!

It may be, that at this hour thousands are on their knees, offering

their fervent prayers to God in behalf of Marie Antoinette, whom, in

their hearts, they continued to call "the queen;" it may be that

thousands are pouring out tears of compassion for her who now mounts

the wretched car, and sits down on the board which is bound by ropes

to the sides of the vehicle. But those who are praying and weeping

have withdrawn to the solitude of their own apartments, and only God

can see their tears and hear their cries. The eyes which witnessed

the queen in this last drive were not allowed to shed a tear; the

words which followed her on her last way could express no

compassion.

All Paris knew the hour of the execution, and the people were ready

to witness it. On the streets, at the windows, on the roofs, immense

masses had congregated, and the whole Place de la Revolution (now

the Place de la Concorde) was filled with a dark, surging crowd.

And now the drums of the guards stationed before the Conciergerie

began to beat. The great white horse, (which drew the car in which

the queen sat, side by side with the priest, and facing backward,)

was driven forward by a man who was upon his back. Behind Marie

Antoinette were Samson and his assistants.

The queen was pale, all the blood had left her cheeks and lips, but

her eyes were red! Poor queen, she bore even then the marks of much

weeping! But she could shed no tears then! Not a single one obscured

her eye as her look ranged, gravely and calmly, over the mass, up

the houses to the very roofs, then slowly down, and then away over

the boundless sea of human faces.

Her face was as cold and grave as her eyes, her lips were firmly

compressed; not a quiver betrayed whether she was suffering, and

whether she shrank from the thousand and ten thousand scornful and

curious looks which were fixed upon her. And yet Marie Antoinette

saw it all! She saw a woman raise a child, she saw the child throw

her a kiss with its little hand! At that the queen gave way for an

instant, her lips quivered, her eyes were darkened with a tear! This

solitary sign of human sympathy reanimated the heart of the queen,

and gave her a little fresh life.

But the people took good care that Marie Antoinette should not carry

this one drop of comfort to the end of her journey. The populace

thronged around the car, howled, groaned, sang ribald songs, clapped

their hands, and pointed their fingers in derision at Madame Veto.

The queen, however, remained calm, her gaze wandering coldly over

the vast multitude; only once did her eye flash on the route. It was

as she passed the Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, once the

Duke d'Orleans, lived, and read the inscription which he had caused

to be placed over the main entrance of the palace.

At noon the car reached its destination. It came to a halt at the

foot of the scaffold; Marie Antoinette dismounted, and then walked

slowly and with erect head up the steps.

Not once during her dreadful ride had her lips opened, not a

complaint had escaped her, not a farewell had she spoken. The only

adieu which she had to give on earth was a look--one long, sad look-

-directed toward the Tuileries; and as she gazed at the great pile

her cheeks grew paler, and a deep sigh escaped from her lips.

Then she placed her head under the guillotine,--a momentary,

breathless silence followed.

Samson lifted up the pale head that had once belonged to the Queen

of France, and the people greeted the sight with the cry, "Long live

the republic!"

That same evening one of the officials of the republic made up an

account, now preserved in the Imperial Library of Paris, and which

must move even the historian himself to tears. It runs as follows:

"Cost of interments, conducted by Joly, sexton of Madelaine de la

Ville l'Eveque, of persons condemned by the Tribunal of the

Committee of Safety, to wit, No. 1 . . . ." Then follow twenty-four

names and numbers, and then "No. 25. Widow Capet:

For the coffin, . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 francs.

For digging the grave,. . . . . . . . . 25 francs."

Beneath are the words, "Seen and approved by me, President of the

Revolutionary Tribunal, that Joly, sexton of the Madelaine, receive

the sum of two hundred and sixty-four francs from the National

Treasury, Paris, llth Brumaire. Year II. of the French Republic.

Herman, President."

The interment of the Queen of France did not cost the republic more

than thirty-one francs, or six American dollars.

CHAPTER XXV.

KING LOUIS THE SEVENTEENTH.

The "one and indivisible republic" bad gained the victory over the

lilies of France. In their dark and unknown graves, in the Madelaine

churchyard, King Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette slept their last

sleep. The monarchy had perished on the guillotine, and the

republicans, the preachers of liberty, equality, and fraternity,

repeated triumphantly: "Royalty is forever extinguished, and the

glorious republic is the rising sun which is to bring eternal

deliverance to France."

But, in spite of this jubilant cry, the foreheads of the republican

leaders darkened, and a peculiar solicitude took possession of their

hearts when their eyes fell upon the Temple--that great, dismal

building, that threw its dark shadows over the sunny path of the

republic. Was it regret that darkened the brows of the regicides as

they looked upon this building, which had been the sad prison of the

king and queen? Those hearts of bronze knew no regret; and when the

heroes of the revolution crossed the Place de la Guillotine, on

which the royal victims had perished, their eyes flashed more

proudly, and did not fall even when they passed by the Madelaine

churchyard.

No, it was not the recollection of the deed that saddened the brows

of the potentates of the republic when they looked at the dismal

Temple, but the recollection of him who was not yet dead, but who

was still living as a captive in the gloomy state-prison of the

republic.

This prisoner was indeed only a child of eight years, but the

legitimists--and there were many of them still in the country--

called him the King of France; and priests in loyal Vendee, when

they had finished the daily mass for the murdered king, prayed to

God, with uplifted hands, for grace and deliverance for the young

captive at the Temple, the young king, Louis XVII.

"Le roi est mort--Vive le roi!"

There were, it must be confessed, among the royalists and

legitimists many who thought of the young prisoner with bitterness

and anger, and who accused and blamed him as the calumniator of his

mother! As if the child knew what he was doing when, at the command

of his tormentor Simon, he wrote with trembling hand his name upon

the paper which was laid before him in the open court. As if the

poor innocent boy knew what meaning the dreadful questions had,

which the merciless judges put to him, and which he answered with

no, or with yes, according as his scrutinizing looks were able to

make out the fitting answer on the hard face of Simon, who stood

near him. For the unhappy lad had already learned to read the face

of the turnkey, and knew very well that every wrinkle of the

forehead which was caused by him must be atoned for with dreadful

sufferings, abuses, and blows.

The poor boy was afraid of the heavy fist that came down like an

iron club upon his back and even on his face, when he said any thing

or did any thing that displeased Simon or his wife; and therefore he

sought to escape this cruel treatment, confirming with his yes and

no what Simon told the judges, and what the child in his innocence

did not understand! And therefore he subscribed the paper without

reluctance in which he unconsciously gave evidence that disgraced

his mother.

With this testimony they ventured to accuse Marie Antoinette of

infamy, but the queen gave it no other answer than scornful silence

and a proud and dignified look, before which the judges cast down

their eyes in shame. Then after a pause they repeated their

question, and demanded an answer.

Marie Antoinette turned her proud and yet gentle glance to the women

who had taken possession in dense masses of the spectators' gallery,

and who breathlessly awaited the answer of the queen.

"I appeal to all mothers present," she said, with her sad, sonorous

voice--" I ask whether they hold such a crime to be possible."

No one gave audible reply, but a murmur passed through the ranks of

the spectators, and the sharp ear of the judges understood very well

the meaning of this sound, this language of sympathy, and it seemed

to them wiser to let the accusation fall rather than rouse up the

compassion of the mothers still more in behalf of the queen. Her

condemnation was an event fixed upon, the "guilty" had been spoken

in the hearts of the judges long before it came to their lips, and

brought the queen to the guillotine.

Marie Antoinette referred to this dreadful charge in the letter

which she wrote to her sister-in-law Elizabeth in the night before

her execution, a letter which was at the same time her testament and

her farewell to life.

"May my son," she wrote, "never forget the last words of his father!

I repeat them to him here expressly: 'May he never seek to avenge

our death!' And now I have to speak of a matter which surely grieves

my heart, I know what trouble this child must have occasioned you.

Forgive him, my dear sister; think how young he is, and how easy it

is to induce a child to say what people want to have him say, and

what he does not understand. The day will come, I hope, when he

shall better comprehend the high value of your goodness and

tenderness to both of my children." [Footnote: Beauchesne, "Louis

XVII., sa Vie, son Agonie," etc., vol. i. ., p. 150, facsimile of

Marie Antoinette's letter.]*

At the same hour when Marie Antoinette was writing this, there was a

dispute between Simon and his wife, who had been ordered by the

Convention to watch that night, in order that the enraged

legitimists might not make an effort to abduct the son of the queen.

They were contending whether the execution would really occur the

next day. Simon, in a jubilant tone, declared his conviction that it

would, while his wife doubted. "She is still handsome," she said,

gloomily, "she knows how to talk well, and she will be able to move

her judges, for her judges are men."

"But Justice is a woman, and she is unshakable," cried Simon

emphatically, and as his wife continued to contradict, Simon

proposed a bet. The wager was, that if the Queen of France should be

guillotined the next noon, the one who lost should furnish brandy

and cakes the next evening for a jollification.

The next morning Simon repaired with the little prisoner to the

platform of the tower, from which there was a free lookout over the

streets, and where they could plainly see what was going on below.

His wife meanwhile had left the Temple at early dawn with her

dreadful knitting-work. "I must be on the spot early if I want a

good place to-day," she said, "and it would be a real misfortune for

me, if I should not see the miserable head of the she-wolf drop, and

not make a double stitch in my stocking."

"But you forget, Jeanne Marie," said Simon, with a grin, "you forget

that you lose your bet if you make the mark in your stocking."

"I would rather lose all the bets that were ever made than not make

the mark in my stocking," cried the knitter, grimly. "I would rather

lose my wedding-dress and my marriage-ring than win this bet. Go up

to the platform with the young wolf, and wait for me there. As soon

as I have made the mark in my stocking, I will run home and show it

to you."

"It is too bad that I cannot go with you," said Simon, sighing. "I

wish I had never undertaken the business of bringing up the little

Capet. It is hateful work, for I can never leave the Temple, and I

am just as much a prisoner as he is."

"The republic has done you a great honor," said the knitter,

solemnly. "She has confidence that you will make out of the son of

the she-wolf, out of the worthless scion of tyrants, a son of the

republic, a useful citizen."

"Good talk," growled Simon, "and you have only the honor of the

affair, and the satisfaction besides of plaguing the son of our

tyrants a bit."

"Of taking revenge," struck in the knitter--"revenge for the misery

which my family has suffered from the tyrants."

"But I," continued Simon, "I have certainly the honor of the thing,

but I have also the burden. In the first place, it is very hard to

make a strong and useful citizen, of the republic out of this

whining, tender, and sensitive urchin. And then again it is very

unpleasant and disagreeable to have to live like a prisoner always."

"Listen, Simon, hear what I promise you," said Jeanne Marie, laying

her hard brown hand upon Simon's shoulder. "If the Austrian atones

to-day for her crimes, and the executioner shows her head to the

avenged people, I will give up my place at the guillotine as a

knitter, will remain with you here in the Temple, will take my share

in the bringing up of the little Capet, and you yourself shall make

the proposition to the supervisor, that your wife like yourself

shall not be allowed to leave the Temple."

"That is something I like to hear," cried Simon, delighted; "there

will then be at least two of us to bear the tedium of imprisonment.

So go, Jenne Marie, take your place for the last time at the

guillotine, for I tell you, you will lose your bet; you will have to

furnish brandy and cakes, and stay with me here at the Temple to

bring up the little Capet. So go, I will go up to the platform with

the boy, and wait there for your return."

He called the little Louis Charles, who was sitting on the tottering

rush-chair in his room, and anxiously waiting to see whether "his

master" was going to take him that day out of the dismal, dark

prison.

"Come, little Capet," cried Simon, pushing the door open with his

foot--" come, we will go up on the platform. You can take your ball

along and play, and I advise you to be right merry to-day, for it is

a holiday for the republic, and I am going to teach you to be a good

republican. So if you want to keep your back free from my straps, be

jolly to-day, and play with your ball"

"Oh!" cried the child, springing forward merrily with his ball--"

oh! only be good, master, I will certainly be merry, for I like to

play with my ball, and I am ever so fond of holidays. What kind of

one is it to-day?"

"No matter about your knowing that, you little toad!" growled Simon,

who in spite of himself had compassion on the pale face of the child

that looked up to him so innocently and inquiringly. "Up the

staircase quick, and play and laugh."

Louis obeyed with a smile, sprang up the high steps of the winding

stairway, jumped about on the platform, throwing his ball up in the

air, and shouting aloud when he caught it again with his little thin

hands.

Meanwhile Simon stood leaning on the iron railing that surrounded

the platform, looking with his searching eyes down into the street

which far below ran between the dark houses like a narrow ribbon.

The wind now brought the sustained notes of the drums to him; then

he saw the street below suddenly filled with a dark mass, as if the

ribbon were turning into crape that was filling all Paris.

"The people are in motion by thousands," cried Simon, delightedly,

"and all rushing to the Place de la Revolution. I shall win my bet."

And again he listened to the sound that came up to him, now

resembling the beat of drums, and now a loud cry of exultation.

"Now I think Samson must be striking the head off the wolf!" growled

Simon to himself, "and the people are shouting with pleasure, and

Jeanne Marie is making a mark in her stocking, and I, poor fellow,

cannot be there to see the fine show! And this miserable brat is to

blame for it," he cried aloud, turning suddenly round to the child

who was playing behind him with his ball, and giving him a savage

blow with his fist.

"You are the cause, stupid, that I cannot be there today!"

"Master," said the child, beseechingly, lifting his great blue eyes,

in which the tears were standing, up to his tormentor--" master, I

beg your forgiveness if I have troubled you."

"Yes, you have troubled me," growled Simon, "and you shall get your

thanks for it in a way you will not like. Quick, away with your

tears, go on with your play if you do not want your back to make

acquaintance with my straps. Merry, I say, little Capet, merry!"

The boy hastily dried his tears, laughed aloud as a proof of his

merriment, and began to jump about again and to play with his ball.

Simon listened again, and looked down longingly into the streets,

which were now black with the surging masses of men. Steps were now

heard upon the stairway, and Jeanne Marie presently appeared on the

platform. With a grave, solemn air she walked up to her husband, and

gave him her stocking, on which three great drops of blood were

visible.

"That is her blood," she said, calmly. "Thank God, I have lost the

bet!"

"What sort of a bet was it?" asked the boy, with a smile, and giving

his ball a merry toss.

"The bet is nothing to you," answered Jeanne Marie, "but if you are

good you will get something by and by, and have a share in the

payment of the bet!"

That evening there was a little feast prepared in the gloomy rooms

of the Simons. The wife paid the wager, for the Queen of France had

really been executed, and she had lost. She provided two bottles of

brandy and a plum cake, and the son of the murdered queen had a

share in the entertainment. He ate a piece of the plum cake, and,

under the fear of being beaten if he refused, he drank some of the

brandy that was so offensive to him.