THE ROYAL MARTYR.
Let us return to the somber edifice confining a king become mere man,
a queen still a queen, a maid who would be a martyr, and two poor
children innocent, from age if not by birth.
The king was in the temple, not the temple tower, but the palace of
the Knights Templars, which had been used by Artois as a pleasure
resort.
The Assembly had not haggled about his keep, but awarded a handsome sum
for the table of one who was a hearty eater, like all the Bourbons.
Not only did the judges reprimand him for his untimely gluttony during
his trial, but they had a note made of the fact to be on record to our
times.
In the temple he had three servants and thirteen attendants connected
with the table. Each day's dinner was composed of four _entrées_--six
varieties of roast meat, four fancy dishes, three kinds of stews, three
dishes of fruit, and Bordeaux, Madeira, and Malvoisie wine.
He and his son alone drank wine, as the queen and the princesses used
water.
On the material side, he had nothing to complain of; but he lacked air,
exercise, sunshine, and shady trees.
Habituated by hunting in the royal forests to glade and covert, he
had to content himself with a green yard, where a few withered trees
scattered prematurely blighted leaves on four parterres of yellowed
grass.
Every day at four, the royal family were "walked out" here, as if they
were so many head of stall-fed cattle.
This was mean, unkind, ferocious in its cruelty; but less cruel and
ferocious than the cells of the pope's dungeons where they had tried
to drive Cagliostro to death, or the leads of Venice, or the Spielberg
dungeons.
We are not excusing the Commune, and not excusing kings; we are bound
to say that the temple was a retaliation, terrible and fatal, but
clumsy, for it was making a prosecution a persecution and a criminal a
martyr.
What did they look like now--those whom we have seen in their glory?
The king, with his weak eyes, flabby cheeks, hanging lips, and heavy,
carefully poised step, seemed a good farmer upset by a great disaster;
his melancholy was that of an agriculturist whose barn had been burned
by lightning or his fields swept by a cyclone. The queen's attitude was
as usual, stiff, proud, and dreadfully irritating. Marie Antoinette had
inspired love of grandeur in her time; in her decline, she inspired
devotion, but never pity; that springs from sympathy, and she was never
one for fellow-feeling.
The guardian angel of the family was Princess Elizabeth, in her
white dress, symbol of her purity of body and soul; her fair hair
was the handsomer from the disuse of powder. The princess royal,
notwithstanding the charm of youth, little interested any one; a
thorough Austrian like her mother, her look had already the scorn and
arrogance of vultures and royal races. The little dauphin was more
winning from his sickly white complexion and golden hair; but his eye
was a hard raw blue, with an expression at times older than his age.
He understood things too well, caught the idea from a glance of his
mother's eye, and showed politic cunning which sometimes wrung tears
from those who tormented him.
The Commune were cruel and imprudent; they changed the watchers
daily, and sent spies, under the guise of town officers. These went
in sworn enemies to the king and came out enemies to the death of
Marie Antoinette, but almost all pitying the king, sorrowing for the
children, and glorifying the Lady Elizabeth. Indeed, what did they see
at the prison? Instead of the wolf, the she-wolf and the whelps--an
ordinary middle-class family, with the mother rather the gray mare and
spitfire, who would not let any one touch the hem of her dress, but of
a brood of tyrants not a trace.
The king had taken up Latin again in order to educate his son, while
the queen occupied herself with her daughter. The link of communication
between the couple was the valet, Clery, attached to the prince royal,
but from the king's own servant, Hue, being dismissed, he waited on
both. While hair-dressing for the ladies, he repeated what the king
wanted to transmit, quickly and in undertones.
The queen would often interrupt her reading to her daughter by plunging
into deep and gloomy musing; the princess would steal away on tiptoe to
let her enjoy a new sorrow, which at least had the benefit of tears,
and make a hushing sign to her brother. When the tear fell on her ivory
hand, beginning to yellow, the poor prisoner would start back from
her dream, her momentary freedom in the immense domain of thought and
memories, and look round her prison with a lowered head and broken
heart.
Weather permitting, the family had a walk in the garden at one o'clock,
with a corporal and his squad of the National Guard to watch them. Then
the king went up to his rooms on the third story to dine. It was then
that Santerre came for his rigorous inspection. The king sometimes
spoke with him; the queen never; she had forgotten what she owed to
this man on the twentieth of June.
As we have stated, bodily needs were tyrannical in the king, who always
indulged in an after-dinner nap; during this, the others remained
silent around his easy-chair. Only when he woke was the chat resumed.
When the newsboys called out the news items in the evening, Clery
listened, and repeated what he caught to the king.
After supper, the king went into the queen's room to bid her
good-night, as well as his sister, by a wave of the hand, and going
into his library, read till midnight. He waited before going off to
sleep to see the guards changed, to know whether he had a strange face
for the night-watcher.
This unchanging life lasted till the king left the small tower--that
is, up to September 30th.
It was a dull situation, and the more worthy of pity as it was
dignifiedly supported. The most hostile were softened by the sight.
They came to watch over the abominable tyrant who had ruined France,
massacred Frenchmen, and called the foreigners in; over the queen who
had united the lubricities of Messalina to the license of Catherine
II.; but they found a plain old fellow whom they could not tell from
his valet, who ate and drank heartily and slept soundly, playing piquet
or backgammon, teaching Latin and geography to his boy, and putting
puzzles to his children out of old newspapers; and a wife, proud and
haughty, one must admit, but calm, dignified, resigned, still handsome,
teaching her daughter tapestry-work and her son his prayers, speaking
gently to the servants and calling them "friends."
The result was that the more the Commune abased the prisoner, and the
more he showed that he was like any other man, the more other men took
pity on their fellow-man.
Still, all who came into contact with the royal family did not feel
the same respect and pity. Hatred and revenge were so deeply rooted
in these, that the sight of the regal misery supported with domestic
virtues, only brought out rudeness, insults, and actual indignities.
On the king saying that he thought a sentry was tired, the soldier
pressed his hat on the more firmly, and said, in the teeth of the
monarch:
"My place here is to keep an eye on you and not for you to criticise
me. Nobody has the right to meddle with my business, and you least of
all."
Once the queen ventured to ask a town officer where he came from.
"I belong to the country," he loftily replied, "at least, as much of it
as your foreign friends have not taken possession of."
One day a municipal officer said to Clery, loud enough for the king
to overhear: "I would guillotine the lot of them if the regular
executioner backed out."
The sentinels decked the walls, where the royals came along to go
into the garden, with lines in this style: "The guillotine is a
standing institution and is waiting for the tyrant Louis."--"Madame
Veto will soon dance on nothing."--"The fat hog must be put on short
rations."--"Pull off the red ribbon he wears--it will do to strangle
his cubs with."
One drawing represented a man hanging, and was labeled: "Louis taking
an air-bath."
The worst tormentors were two lodgers in the temple, Rocher,
the sapper, and Simon, the notorious cobbler. The latter, whose
harsh treatment of the royal child has made him noted, was insult
personified. Every time he saw the prisoners, it was to inflict a fresh
outrage.
Rocher was the man whom we saw take up the dauphin when Charny fell,
and carry him into the House; yet he, placed by Manuel to prevent harm
befalling the captives, resembled those boys who are given a bird to
keep--they kill time by plucking out the feathers one by one.
But, however unhappy the prisoners were, they had yet the comfort that
they were under the same roof.
The Commune resolved to part the king from his family.
Clery had an inkling of the intention, but he could not get at
the exact date until a general searching of the prisoners on the
twenty-ninth of September gave him a hint. That night, indeed, they
took away the king into rooms in the great tower which were wet with
plaster and paint and the smell was unbearable.
But the king lay down to sleep without complaining, while the valet
passed the night on a chair.
When he was going out to attend to the prince, whose attendant he
strictly was, the guard stopped him, saying:
"You are no longer to have communications with the other prisoners;
the king is not to see his children any more."
As they omitted to bring special food for the servant, the king broke
his bread with him, weeping while the man sobbed.
When the workmen came to finish the rooms, the town officer who
superintended them came up to the king with some pity, and said:
"Citizen, I have seen your family at breakfast, and I undertake to say
that all were in health."
The king's heart ached at this kind feeling.
He thanked the man, and begged him to transmit the report of his
health to his dear ones. He asked for some books, and as the man could
not read, he accompanied Clery down into the other rooms to let him
select the reading matter. Clery was only too glad, as this gave an
opportunity of seeing the queen. He could not say more than a few
words, on account of the soldiers being present.
The queen could not hold out any longer, and she besought to let them
all have a meal in company.
The municipal officers weakened, and allowed this until further orders.
One of them wept, and Simon said:
"Hang me if these confounded women will not get the water-works running
in my eyes. But," he added, addressing the queen, "you did not do any
weeping when you shot down the people on the tenth of August."
"Ah!" said the queen; "the people have been much misled about our
feelings toward them. If you knew us better, you would be sorry, like
this gentleman."
So the dinner was served in the old place; it was a feast, for they
gained so much in one day, they thought. They gained everything, for
nothing more was heard of the Commune's new regulation; the king
continued to see his family daily, and to take his meals with them.
One of these days, when he went in, he found the queen sweeping up the
dauphin's room, who was unwell. He stopped on the sill, let his head
sink on his breast, and sighed:
"Ah, my lady, this is sorry work for a Queen of France, and if they
could see from Vienna what you are doing here! Who would have thought
that, in uniting you to my fate, I should ever bring you so low?"
"Do you reckon it as nothing," replied Marie Antoinette, "this glory of
being the wife of the best and most persecuted of men?"
This was spoken without an idea there were hearers; but all such
sayings were picked up and diffused to embroider with gold the dark
legend of the martyr king.