father's door on the 20th of June, 1792, and thought to assassinate him. This man was always at the tower, and sought to torment my father in every conceivable fashion: now he would sing the “Carmagnole," and a thousand other horrors; now he would send a puff of tobacco smoke at him as he passed, well knowing that my father did not like the odor of the pipe. He was always in bed when we went to take supper, because we had to pass through his room; sometimes even he was in his bed when we went to dinner. There are no sorts of torments and insults which he did not invent. My father bore everything with meekness, forgiving this man with all his heart. This horrible scene is succeeded by many other minor affronts and petty outrages, all tending to aggravate the sufferings of the unfortunate prisoners. Sometimes, however, among the guards there happen to be men who betray feelings of genuine pity and attachment for the captives under their charge, and to each of these compassionate individuals the princess devotes a few words of grateful recognition. Once it is a sentinel who had a long conversation through the keyhole with Madame Elisabeth, and who did nothing but weep during the whole time that his service retained him at the Temple. I know not what has become heaven reward him for his profound attachment to his king!" Most beautiful and edifying it is to see how, though condemned to a life of discomfort and restraint, and harrowed by suspense as to their ultimate fate, the king and queen yet continue to direct their children's education with methodical precision; and there are constant allusions made to the daily tasks and exercises which have to be written or recited, as exactly as had ever been the case in their life at the Tuilleries, although these studies were carried out in face of considerable difficuities, for the journal tells us that whenever Madame Royale copied out extracts, or made arithmetical tasks, there had always to be a municipal who looked over her shoulder in order to make sure that she was not engaged in some treasonable correspondence. The passages relating to the Prin- of him," writes Madame Royale; “may cesse de Lamballe's death, and the inhuman manner in which the royal family were informed of the event, are full of interest, affording a vivid insight into those mental tortures which assuredly were harder to endure than even the personal restraint and physical discomfort to which they were subjected. On the morning of the 3d of September the king had been positively assured of the wellbeing of Madame de Lamballe, as of those other persons who had been removed to La Force; but at three o'clock of that same afternoon they heard horrible cries proceeding from the rabble outside, accompanying the head of the murdered princess, which was carried in triumph at the end of a long pole. On inquiring the cause of the tumult, the king was coolly informed that it was Madame de Lamballe's head, which the people desired to show him. A struggle ensued, in which the populace endeavored to force the prison doors, while some of the guards, with a last remnant of humanity, were desirous of shielding the unfortunate princes from the horror of a spectacle which even upset the nerves of indifferent spectators. Finally, the guards had to give in, and permitted a deputation of six of the assassins to carry Madame de Lamballe's head through the rooms of the tower, stipulating only that the torso, which they had likewise desired to drag with them, should be left at the door. It is probably also on account of some such suspicion that pens, paper, ink, and pencils are subsequently ordered to be given up by the royal prisoners a command which is, however, obeyed by the king and queen only; while Madame Elisabeth and her niece, with admirable feminine duplicity, contrive to conceal their writing implements from the Argus-eyed searchers. Newspapers reach the Temple prison but rarely, and then only when a number containing some specially dastardly attack on the monarch is carefully conveyed to his notice. Madame Royale's own account of their daily life may here be given in full: This is how my august parents spent their days. My father rose at 7 o'clock, prayed God till eight, then dressed himself with my brother till 9 o'clock, when they went up stairs to my mother to breakfast. After breakfast my father came down with my brother, to whom he gave lessons till 11 o'clock; then my brother played till noon, when we went to walk all together, whatever might be the weather, because the guard which was relieved at that hour, wished to see my father, and be assured of his presence in the Temple. The walk lasted till two o'clock, when we dined after dinner my father and my mother played together at trictrac or at piquet. At 4 o'clock my mother returned to her room with my brother, because my father then used to sleep. At 6 o'clock my brother came down ; my father made him learn and play till supper time. At 9 o'clock after supper my mother promptly undressed my brother and put him to bed. After this we went up, and my father did not go to bed till eleven o'clock. My mother led nearly the same life: she worked very much at tapestry.1 They gave us back the newspapers in order that we should see the departure of the strangers, and the horrors against my father with which they were filled. We shall now skip some intervening pages of the journal relating to the king's trial, to take it up again shortly before his execution. On the 26th of December, St. Stephen's Day, my father made his will because he expected to be assassinated on the following day, in going to the Convention. On the 26th my father went still to the bar with his usual courage. He left M. Desèze to read his defence: he went away at eleven o'clock and returned at 3 o'clock. father saw his counsellors every day. My At last, on the 18th of January, the day on which the sentence was pronounced, the municipals entered my father's room at eleven o'clock, and told him that they had 1 Marie Antoinette was most industrious with the needle: a set of chairs worked by her are still to be seen at Castle Frolisdorf. The detailed account of the king's last twenty-four hours only tends to confirm what has so often been said of the admirable fortitude and Christian his awful and unjustifiable fate. resignation with which Louis XVI. met He dined as usual on the day preceding his execution, much to the surprise of his gaolers, who had expected to see him attempt his life from terror or despair; he gives good religious counsels to the son whom he is embracing for the last time, recommending him to nourish no thoughts of revenge towards the assassins; and finally, on leaving the prison to go to the scaffold, he humbly asks pardon of an insolent turnkey whom he had had occasion to reprimand on the previous day. Marie Antoinette, along with her children, had desired to pass the last night with the king; but this he refused, having, as he said, need of rest; and he secretly gave orders that they are not to be admitted again next morning, in order to spare himself and them the agony of a final leave-taking. The morning of this terrible day, after having slumbered through the night with a painful sleep, we got up. At 6 o'clock our door was opened, and they came to fetch Mme. Tison's prayerbook for my father's mass. We thought that we were going to go down, and we continued to have this hope till the joyful cries of a demented populace came to announce to us that the crime was accomplished. In the afternoon my mother asked to see Clery, who had been with my father in his last moments, and who might, perhaps, | down by fever, and when the agonized have been charged with messages for my mother at last succeeds in obtaining mother, — which was true, for my father medical assistance for the suffering had charged Clery to restore to my mother his wedding-ring, saying that he only parted from it with his life. He had also given him, for my mother, a packet of her hair, saying that it had always been dear to him. The municipals said that Clery was in a dreadful state, and could not come. child, she is haunted by the yet greater terror lest the medicines prescribed should contain poison. Scarcely has the dauphin recovered from this first illness than a decree of the Convention ordains that he is to be separated from his family, and delivered over to the charge of the shoemaker Simon. This cruel order is broken to the queen on the 3d of July at ten o'clock at night, after the child is already undressed and in bed. On learning what is required of him, he utters fearful cries, and My mother charged the commissaries with her demand for the council general, as well as to be allowed to wear mourning. Clery was refused, my mother could not see him; she was permitted to wear mourning. Clery passed another month in the Tem-throws himself into his mother's arms, ple, after which he was put at liberty. We received a little more freedom, the guards believing that we were going to be sent away. We could see the persons who brought our mourning garments, but in presence of the municipals. The grief that I had increased the pain in my foot my doctor Brunier [Brunyer] was sent for and the surgeon Lacaze; they cured me in a month. My mother would not go down to the garden to take the air, because she required to pass before my father's door, and that grieved her too much; but, fearing lest the want of air should do harm to my brother, she asked to go up on the tower at the end of February, which was granted. demanding not to be separated from My mother thought herself at the height of misfortune at this separation from her son. She believed him, however, to be in the hands of an honest and educated man : her despair increased when she learnt that municipal, had been charged with the person of her unfortunate child. In the municipals' chamber it was no-Simon the shoemaker, whom she had known ticed that the sealed packet, containing my father's signet, his ring, and several other things, had been opened; the seal was broken and the signet carried off. The municipals were disturbed, but they ended by believing that it was a thief who had taken this seal, which was set in gold. The person who had taken it was well intentioned, it was not a robber. The man My mother asked several times to be able to see him without being able to obtain it : my brother on his side cried for two whole days, unable to console himself, and asking to see us. We often ascended the tower. My who took it did so for the best, but he is brother went up there every day, and my dead. mother's only pleasure was through a little window to see him pass from a distance: she remained there for hours in order to watch the moment of catching sight of this beloved child. Soon the prison life began to tell upon the little dauphin, and his sister pathetically informs us that he suffers from a chronic stitch in the side which prevents him from laughing. Poor little boy the wonder is rather that he should still be able to extract any cause for merriment out of his dismal surroundings. However, his laugh- With what would seem to be a refineing days, such as they are, will not ment of cruelty, the royal family are last much longer. He is first stricken often disturbed at night from their Simon ill-treated my brother severely, because he wept at being separated from us; the child, frightened, did not dare to weep any more. slumbers in order to be searched or taken away the boy's mourning clothes, otherwise molested. Madame Royale gives the account of one of these searches, which, resulting only in the confiscation of a stick of sealing-wax, a manuscript prayer for France, and an old hat which had belonged to the deceased king, lasted from 10.30 P.M. to four o'clock A.M. It is likewise in the night that, on the 2d of August, at two o'clock A.M., they are roused in order to be informed of the decree ordained that the queen is to be removed to the conciergerie, there to be tried. Marie Antoinette is forced to rise from bed, and there, in presence of the gendarmes who have come to fetch her, to dress at once. Her clothes are made up into a bundle, which, however, is taken from her to be opened at the tribunal, and she is only suffered to retain a pocket-handkerchief and a smelling-bottle, for fear of being attacked by faintness. Arrived at the conciergerie, she is put into the dampest and most unwholesome room in the prison, and is moreover forced to endure the presence of a gendarme, who has orders never to leave her night or day. My aunt and I inconsolable, we spent the night in tears. They had assured my aunt when my mother [left] that she might be easy, and that nothing would ever happen to her. It was a great consolation to me not to be separated from my aunt whom I loved so well; but, alas! everything was changed, and I have lost her. and forced him to wear a red cap, as well as to utter horrible curses against God, the aristocracy, and his own family. Marie Antoinette is luckily spared this last anguish, for, having left the Temple, she is ignorant of her son's further fate. The change of life and the bad treatment caused the prince to fall ill again at the end of August. Simon having forced him to eat and drink excessively without taking proportionate exercise, the child had fattened extremely without growing in height; attacked by fever, the remedies administered but serve to derange his health yet further. Madame Elisabeth and her niece are now treated with redoubled severity and want of respect. "On nous tutoya beaucoup pendant l'hiver," says Madame Royale, with naïf pathos. Their tapestry work is taken away from them because the pattern they are tracing is believed to have some cabalistic and hidden signification; they are, moreover, compelled to make their own beds and do out their own rooms, all menial assistance having been now denied to them. But harder yet by far than these physical discomforts and petty annoyances is the state of doubt in which they are left as to the queen's fate. Let her daughter here speak for herself. We could receive no more news except by the colporteurs, and then but badly. We were forbidden to ascend the tower; they took away our sheets lest we should let ourselves down by the window; they gave us instead coarse and dirty ones. I think it was about this time that my mother's trial began. I learnt since her death that there had been a project of saving her from the conciergerie, and that unfortunately this charming plan had not succeeded. I was assured that the gendarmes who guarded her, as well as the wife of the concierge, were gained over, and that she had seen several persons in her prison, amongst others a priest who administered to her the sacraments, which she had received with great piety. The stroke to save herself failed, because whereas she had been recommended to speak to the second guard, she had made a room under bolt and key, having no assistance, and only a wretched bell which he never pulled, preferring to want for everything than to apply to his persecutors. mistake, and had spoken to the first one. | tunate child of eight alone, shut into his Others say that she was already outside her room and had descended the staircase when a gendarme opposed her departure, notwithstanding that he had already been gained over, and that he forced my mother to return to her room, which caused the project to fail. We knew nothing of all this at the time; we only learned that my mother had seen a knight of St. Louis, who had given her a carnation in which there was a note, but as we were locked up we could not know the sequence. My aunt and I were in ignorance of my mother's death, and though we had heard a colporteur cry that she was to be summarily judged, hope, which is so natural to the unfortunate, led us to believe that she would be saved. We also could not believe in the contemptible conduct of the emperor, who left the queen, his relation, to perish on the scaffold, without taking any steps to save her. This is, however, what actually took place, but we could not believe in this last mark of indignity of the Austrian house. The winter passed quietly enough. Many visits and searches, but they gave us wood. On the 19th of January we heard a loud noise at my brother's, which made us conjecture that he was leaving the Temple; and we were convinced of it when, looking through a hole in our shutters, we saw a great many packets being carried away. On the following day we heard his door opening, and, still persuaded that he was gone, we thought that some German or foreign prisoner had been placed down there, and we had already dubbed him Melchisedec, in order to give him a name; but I subsequently learnt that it was only Simon who had gone away. He had been given the choice of being municipal or guardian to my brother, and had decided for the former charge, and they had had the cruelty to leave my unfortunate little brother alone. Unheard of barbarity, to leave an unfor He was in a bed which had not been made for six months, my brother not having the strength to make it; fleas and bugs covered him his linen and his body were full of them. . . . The window was never opened, one could not stay in the room on account of the stench. He was dirty and indolent by nature, for he might have taken more care of his person. Often they gave him no light the unfortunate boy was dying of fear, but he never asked for anything. He spent his day in doing nothing, and this manner of living did him a great deal of harm, both morally and physically: it was not surprising that his health should have subsequently become deranged, but the length of time that he was still in health testifies to his good constitution. lose her last remaining companion; for Soon the unfortunate princess was to on the 9th of May, just as they were preparing to go to bed, her aunt, Madame Elisabeth, was fetched away to the conciergerie, there to await her "Where were you on the 10th of August?" "At the castle of the Tuilleries, near my brother." "What have you done with your diamonds ?" "I do not know. Besides, all these questions are useless. You have resolved my death I have made to God the sacrifice of my life, and am ready to die.” She was condemned to death. She had herself conducted to the room of those who were to die with her. She exhorted them all to death. In the cart she preserved the same calm, encouraging the women who were with her. The populace admired and did not insult her. Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, they had the cruelty to make her die the last. All the women coming out the cart asked permission to embrace her, which she al |