The fate of the Princess Lamballe, who perished at this time, is highly illustrative of the horrors in the midst of which all the Royalists lived. This lovely woman, left a widow at eighteen, was attracted to the queen by her misfortunes, and became her most intimate and devoted friend. She lodged in an apartment adjoining to the queen's, that she might share all her perils. Occasionally the princess was absent to watch over and cheer an aged friend, the Duke de Penthievre, her father-in-law, who resided at the Chateau de Vernon. She had gone a short time before the 20th of June to visit the aged duke, and Maria Antoinette, who foresaw the terrible storm about to burst upon them, wrote the following touching letter to her friend, urging her not to return to the sufferings and dangers of the Tuileries. The letter was found in the hair of the Princess de Lamballe after her assassination.

"Do not leave Vernon, my dear Lamballe, before you are perfectly recovered. The good Duke de Penthievre would be sorry and distressed, and we must all take care of his advanced age and respect his virtues. I have so often told you to take heed of yourself, that, if you love me, you must think of yourself; we shall require all of our strength in the times in which we live. Oh! do not return, or return as late as possible. Your heart would be too deeply wounded; you would have too many tears to shed over my misfortunes—you, who loved me so tenderly. This race of tigers which infests the kingdom would cruelly enjoy itself if it knew all the sufferings we undergo. Adieu, my dear Lamballe; I am always thinking of you, and you know I never change."

The princess, notwithstanding this advice, hastened to join her friend and to share her fate. She stood by the side of the queen during the sleeplessness of the night preceding the 20th of June, and clung to her during all those long and terrific hours in which the mob filled her apartment with language of obscenity, menace, and rage. She accompanied the royal family to the Assembly, shared with them the cheerless night in the old monastery of the Feuillants, and followed them to the gloomy prison of the Temple. The stern decree of the Assembly, depriving the royal family of the presence of any of their friends, excluded the princess from the prison. She still, however, lived but to weep over the sorrows of those whom she so tenderly loved.

She was soon arrested as a Loyalist, and plunged, like the vilest criminal, into the prison of La Force. For the crime of loving the king and queen she was summoned to appear before the Revolutionary tribunal. The officers found her lying upon her pallet in the prison, surrounded by other wretched victims of lawless violence, scarcely able to raise her head from her pillow. She entreated them to leave her to die where she was. One of the officers leaned over her bed, and whispered to her that they were her friends, and that her life depended upon her entire compliance with their directions. She immediately arose and accompanied the guard down the prison stairs to the door. There two brutal-looking wretches, covered with blood, stood waiting to receive her. As they grasped her arms, she fainted. It was long before she recovered. As soon as she revived she was led before the judges. "Swear," said one of them, "that you love liberty and equality; and swear that you hate all kings and queens." "I am willing to swear the first," she replied, "but as to hatred of kings and queens, I can not swear it, for it is not in my heart." Another judge, moved with pity by her youth and innocence, bent over her and whispered, "Swear any thing, or you are lost." She still remained silent. "Well," said one, "you may go, but when you get into the street, shout Vive la nation!" The court-yard was filled with assassins, who cut down, with pikes and bludgeons, the condemned as they were led out from the court, and the mutilated and gory bodies of the slain were strewn over the pavement. Two soldiers took her by the arm to lead her out. As she passed from the door, the dreadful sight froze her heart with terror, and she exclaimed, forgetful of the peril, "O God! how horrible!" One of the soldiers, by a friendly impulse, immediately covered her mouth, with his hand, that her exclamations might not be heard. She was led into the street, filled with assassins thirsting for the blood of the Royalists, and had advanced but a few steps, when a journeyman barber, staggering with intoxication and infuriated with carnage, endeavored, in a kind of brutal jesting, to strike her cap from her head with his long pike. The blow fell upon her forehead, cutting a deep gash, and the blood gushed out over her face. The assassins around, deeming this the signal for their onset, fell upon her. A blow from a bludgeon laid her dead upon the pavement. One, seizing her by the hair, with a saber cut off her head. Others tore her garments from her graceful limbs, and, cutting her body into fragments, paraded the mutilated remains upon their pikes through the streets. The dissevered head they bore into an ale house, and drank and danced around the ghastly trophy in horrid carousal. The rioting multitude then, in the phrensy of intoxication, swarmed through the streets to the Temple, to torture the king and queen with the dreadful spectacle. The king, hearing the shoutings and tumultuous laughter of the mob, went to the window, and recognized, in the gory head thrust up to him upon the point of a pike, the features of his much-loved friend. He immediately led the queen to another part of the room, that she might be shielded from the dreadful spectacle.

Such were the flashes of terror which were ever gleaming through the bars of their windows. The horrors of each passing moment were magnified by the apprehension of still more dreadful evils to come. There was, however, one consolation yet left them. They were permitted to cling together. Locked in each other's arms, they could bow in prayer, and by sympathy and love sustain their fainting hearts. It was soon, however, thought that these indulgences were too great for dethroned royalty to enjoy. But a few days of their captivity had passed away, when, at midnight, they were aroused by an unusual uproar, and a band of brutal soldiers came clattering into their room with lanterns, and, in the most harsh and insulting manner, commanded the immediate expulsion of all the servants and attendants of the royal family. Expostulation and entreaty were alike unavailing. The captives were stripped of all their friends, and passed the remainder of the night in sleeplessness and in despair. With the light of the morning they endeavored to nerve themselves to bear with patience this new trial. The king performed the part of a nurse in aiding to wash and dress the children. For the health of the children, they went into the court-yard of the prison before dinner for exercise and the fresh air. A soldier, stationed there to guard them, came up deliberately to the queen, and amused his companions by puffing tobacco smoke from his pipe into her face. The parents read upon the walls the names of their children, described as "whelps who ought to be strangled."

Six weeks of this almost unendurable agony passed away, when, one night, as the unhappy captives were clustered together, finding in their mutual and increasing affection a solace for all their woes, six municipal officers entered the tower, and read a decree ordering the entire separation of the king from the rest of his family. No language can express the consternation of the sufferers in view of this cruel measure. Without mercy, the officers immediately executed the barbarous command, by tearing the king from the embraces of his agonized wife and his grief-distracted children. The king, overwhelmed with anguish in view of the sufferings which his wife and children must endure, most earnestly implored them not to separate him from his family. They were inflexible and, hardly allowing the royal family one moment for their parting adieus, hurried the king away. It was the dark hour of a gloomy night. The few rays of light from the lanterns guided them through narrow passages, and over piles of rubbish to a distant angle of the huge and dilapidated fortress, where they thrust the king into an unfurnished cell, and, locking the door upon him, they left him with one tallow candle to make visible the gloom and the solitude. There was, in one corner, a miserable pallet, and heaps of moldering bricks and mortar were scattered over the damp floor. The king threw himself, in utter despair, upon this wretched bed, and counted, till the morning dawned, the steps of the sentinel pacing to and fro before his door. At length a small piece of bread and a bottle of water were brought him for his breakfast.

The anguish of the queen in the endurance of this most cruel separation was apparently as deep as human nature could experience. Her woe amounted to delirium. Pale and haggard, she walked to and fro, beseeching her jailers that they would restore to her and to her children the husband and the father. Her pathetic entreaties touched even their hearts of stone. "I do believe," said one of them, "that these infernal women will make even me weep." After some time, they consented that the king should occasionally be permitted to partake his meals with his family, a guard being always present to hear what they should say. Immediately after the meal, he was to be taken back to his solitary imprisonment.

Such was the condition of the royal family during a period of about four months, varied by the capricious mercy or cruelty of the different persons who were placed as guards over them. Their clothes became soiled, threadbare, and tattered; and they were deprived of all means of repairing their garments, lest they should convert needles and scissors into instruments of suicide. The king was not allowed the use of a razor to remove his beard; and the luxury of a barber to perform that essential part of his toilet was an expense which his foes could not incur. It was the studied endeavor of those who now rode upon the crested yet perilous billows of power, to degrade royalty to the lowest depths of debasement and contempt—that the beheading of the king and the queen might be regarded as merely the execution of a male and a female felon dragged from the loathsome dungeons of crime.



CHAPTER X.

EXECUTION OF THE KING.

1792-1793

Ominous preparations.—The king summoned before the Convention.—The king before the Convention.—Charges brought against him.—The king begs for a morsel of bread.—He is taken back to prison.—Advance of the allies.—Clamor for the king's life.—The king condemned to death.—Emotion of Malesherbes.—The king's demands.—The Abbe Edgeworth.—The last interview.—Anguish of the royal family.—The last embrace.—The separation.—The king receives the sacrament.—Mementoes to his family.—The king summoned to execution.—Brutality of the officers.—The brutal jailer.—The king conducted to execution.—A sad procession.—Admirable calmness of the king.—Attempt to rescue the king.—Its failure.—The guillotine.—Associations.—The king's thoughtfulness.—He undresses himself.—The king ascends the scaffold.—His speech.—The last act in the tragedy.—Burial of the king's body.—The blood-red obelisk.—Character of Louis.

On the 11th of December, 1792, just four months after the royal family had been consigned to the Temple, as the captives were taking their breakfast, a great noise of the rolling of drums, the neighing of horses, and the tramp of a numerous multitude was heard around the prison walls; soon some one entered, and informed the king that these were the preparations which were making to escort him to his trial. The king knew perfectly well that this was the step which preceded his execution, and, as he thought of the awful situation of his family, he threw himself into his chair and buried his face in his hands, and for two hours remained in that attitude immovable. He was roused from his painful revery by the entrance of the officers to conduct him to the bar of his judges, from whom he was aware he could expect no mercy. "I follow you," said the king, "not in obedience to the orders of the Convention, but because my enemies are the more powerful." He put on his brown great-coat and hat, and, silently descending the stairs to the door of the tower, entered a carriage which was there awaiting him. As he had long been deprived of his razors, his chin and cheeks were covered with masses of hair. His garments hung loosely around his emaciated frame, and all dignity of aspect was lost in the degraded condition to which designing cruelty had reduced him. The captive monarch was escorted through the streets by regiments of cavalry, infantry, and artillery, every man furnished with fifteen rounds of ammunition to repel any attempts at a rescue. A countless throng of people lined the streets through which the illustrious prisoner was conveyed. The multitude gazed upon the melancholy procession in profound silence. He soon stood before the bar of the Convention. "Louis," said the president, "the French nation accuses you. You are about to hear the charges which are to be preferred. Louis, be seated." The king listened with perfect tranquillity and self-possession to a long catalogue of accusations, in which his efforts to sustain the falling monarchy, and his exertions to protect himself and family from insults and death, were construed into crimes against the nation.

The examination of the king was long, minute, and was conducted by those who were impatient for his blood. At its close, the king, perfectly exhausted by mental excitement and the want of refreshment, was led back into the waiting-room of the Convention. He was scarcely able to stand for faintness. He saw a soldier eating a piece of bread. He approached, and, in a whisper, begged him for a piece, and ate it. Here was the monarch of thirty millions of people, in the heart of his proud capital, and with all his palaces around him, actually begging bread of a poor soldier. The king was again placed in the carriage, and conveyed back to his prison in the Temple. As the cortege passed slowly by the palace of the Tuileries, the scene of all his former grandeur and happiness, the king gazed long and sadly on the majestic pile, so lost in thought that he heeded not, and apparently heard not the insulting cries which were resounding around him. As the king entered the Temple, he raised his eyes most wistfully to the queen's apartment, but the windows were so barred that no glances could be interchanged. The king was conducted to his apartment, and was informed that he could no longer be permitted to hold any communication whatever with the other members of his family. He contrived, however, by means of a tangle of thread, in which was inclosed a piece of paper, perforated by a needle, to get a note to the queen, and to receive a few words in return. He, however, felt that his doom was sealed, and began from that hour to look forward to his immortality. He made his will, in which he spoke in most affecting terms of his wife, and his children, and his enemies, commending them all to the protection of God.

An indescribable gloom now reigned throughout Paris. The allied armies on the frontiers were gradually advancing. The French troops were defeated. It was feared that the Royalists would rise, and join the invaders, and rescue the king. Desperadoes rioted through the streets, clamoring for the blood of their monarch. With knives and bludgeons they surrounded the Convention, threatening the lives of all if they did not consign the king to the guillotine. The day for the final decision came—Shall the king live or die? On that day the heart of the metropolis throbbed as never before. It was the 20th of January, 1793. The Convention had already been in uninterrupted session for fifteen hours. The clamor of the tumultuous and threatening mob gave portentous warning of the doom which awaited the members of the Assembly should they dare to spare the life of the king. One by one the deputies mounted the tribune as their names were called in alphabetical order, and gave their vote. For some time death and exile seemed equally balanced. The results of the vote were read. The Convention comprised seven hundred and twenty-one voters, three hundred and thirty-four of whom voted for exile, and three hundred and eighty-seven for death.

Louis sat alone in his prison, calmly awaiting the decision. He laid down that night knowing that his doom was sealed, and yet not knowing what that doom was. Malesherbes, the venerable friend who had volunteered for his defense, came to communicate the mournful tidings. He fell at the king's feet so overcome with emotion that he could not speak. The king understood the language of his silence and his tears, and uttered himself the sentence "Death." But a few moments elapsed before the officers of the Convention came, in all the pomp and parade of the land, to communicate to the king his doom to the guillotine in twenty-four hours. With perfect calmness, and fixing his eye immovably upon his judges he heard the reading of the sentence. The reading concluded, the king presented a paper to the deputies, which he first read to them in the clear and commanding tones of a monarch upon his throne, demanding a respite of three days, in order to prepare to appear before God; also permission to see his family, and to converse with a priest. The Convention, angry at these requests, informed the king that he might see any priest he pleased, and that he might see his family, but that the execution must take place in twenty-four hours from the time of the sentence. Darkness had again fallen upon the city, when the minister of religion, M. Edgeworth, was led through the gloomy streets, to administer the consolations of piety to the condemned monarch. As he entered the apartment of the king, he fell at his feet and burst into tears. Louis for a moment wept, when, recovering himself, he said, "Pardon me this momentary weakness. I have so long lived among enemies, that habit has rendered me insensible to hatred. The sight of a faithful friend restores my sensibility, and moves me to tears in spite of myself." A long conversation ensued, in which the king inquired, with the greatest interest, respecting the fate of his numerous friends. He read his will with the utmost deliberation, his voice faltering only when he alluded to his wife, children, and sister. At seven o'clock he was to have his last agonizing interview with his beloved family, and the thought of this agitated him far more than the prospect of the scaffold.

The hour for the last sad meeting arrived. The king, having prepared his heart by prayer for the occasion, descended into a small unfurnished room, where he was to meet his family. The door opened. The queen, leading his son, and Madame Elizabeth, leading his daughter, with trembling, fainting steps, entered the room. Not a word was uttered. The king threw himself upon a bench, drew the queen to his right side, his sister to the left, and their arms encircled his neck, and their heads hung upon his breast. The son climbed upon his father's knee, clinging with his arms frantically to his bosom; and the daughter, throwing herself at his feet, buried her head in his lap, her beautiful hair, in disordered ringlets, falling over her shoulders. A long half hour thus passed, in which not one single articulate word was spoken, but the anguish of these united hearts was expressed in cries and lamentations which pierced through the stone walls of their prison, and were heard by passers by in the streets. But human nature could not long endure this intensity of agony. Total exhaustion ensued. Their tears dried upon their cheeks; embraces, kisses, whispers of tenderness and love, and woe ensued, which lasted for two hours.

The king then clasped them each in a long embrace, pressing his lips to their cheeks, and prepared to retire. Clinging to each other in an inseparable group, they approached the stair-case which the king was to ascend, when their piercing, heart-rending cries were renewed. The king, summoning all his fortitude to his aid, tore himself from them, and, in most tender accents, cried "Adieu! adieu!" hastily ascended the stairs and disappeared, having partially promised that he would see them again in the morning. The princess royal fell fainting upon the floor, and was borne insensible to her room. The king, reaching his apartment, threw himself into a chair, and exclaimed, "What an interview I have had! Why do I love so fondly? Alas! why am I so fondly loved? But we have now done with time, let us occupy ourselves with eternity."

The hour of midnight had now arrived. The king threw himself upon his bed, and slept as calmly, as peacefully, as though he had never known a sorrow. At five o'clock he was awakened, and received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Then, taking a small parcel from his bosom, and removing his wedding ring from his finger, he said to an attendant, "After my death, I wish you to give this seal to my son, this ring to the queen. Say to the queen, my dear children, and my sister, that I had promised to see them this morning, but that I desired to spare them the agony of this bitter separation twice over. How much it has cost me to part without receiving their last embraces!" Here his utterance was impeded by sobs. He then called for some scissors, that he might cut off locks of hair for his family. As he soon after stood by the stove, warming himself, he exclaimed, "How happy am I that I maintained my Christian faith while on the throne! What would have been my condition now, were it not for this hope!" Soon faint gleams of the light of day began to penetrate through the iron bars and planks which guarded his windows. It was the signal for the beating of drums, the tramp of armed men, the rolling of heavy carriages of artillery, and the clattering of horses' hoofs. As the escort were arriving at their stations in the court-yard of the Temple, a great noise was heard upon the stair-case. "They have come for me," said the king; and, rising with perfect calmness and without a tremor, he opened the door. It was a false summons. Again and again, under various pretexts, the door was opened, until nine o'clock, when a tumultuous noise upon the stair-case announced the approach of a body of armed men. Twelve municipal officers and twelve soldiers entered the apartment. The soldiers formed in two lines. The king, with a serene air, placed himself between the double lines, and, looking to one of the municipal officers, said, presenting to him a roll of paper, which was his last will and testament, "I beg of you to transmit this paper to the queen." The municipal brutally replied, "That is no affair of mine. I am here to conduct you to the scaffold." "True," the king replied, and gave the paper to another, who received it. The king then, taking his hat and declining his coat, notwithstanding the severity of the cold, said, with a dignified gesture and a tone of command, "Let us go." The king led the way, followed rather than conducted by his escort. Descending the stairs, he met the turnkey, who had been disrespectful to him the night before, and whom the king had reproached for his insolence. Louis immediately approached the unfeeling jailer, and said to him, "Mathey, I was somewhat warm with you yesterday; forgive me, for the sake of this hour." The imbruted monster turned upon his heel without any reply.

As he crossed the court-yard of the Temple, he anxiously gazed upon the windows of the apartment where the queen, his sister, and his children were imprisoned. The windows were so guarded by plank shutters that no glances from the loved ones within could meet his eye. As the heart of the king dwelt upon the scenes of anguish which he knew must be passing there, it seemed for a moment that his fortitude would fail him. But, with a violent effort, he recovered his composure and passed on. At the entrance of the Temple a carriage awaited the king. Two soldiers entered the carriage, and took seats by his side. The king's confessor also rode in the carriage. It was the 21st of January, 1793, a gloomy winter's day. Dark clouds lowered in the sky. Fog and smoke darkened the city. The atmosphere was raw, and cold in the extreme. Nature seemed in harmony with man's deed of cruelty and crime. The shops were all closed, the markets were empty. No citizens were allowed to cross the streets on the line of march, or even to show themselves at the windows. Sixty drums kept up a deafening clamor as the vast procession of cavalry, infantry, and artillery marched before, behind, and on each side of the carriage. Cannon, loaded with grape-shot, with matches lighted, guarded the main street on the line of march, to prevent the possibility of an attempt even at rescue. The noise of the drums, the clatter of the iron hoofs of the horses, and the rumbling of the heavy pieces of artillery over the pavements prevented all discourse, and the king, leaning back in his carriage, surrendered himself to such reflections as the awful hour would naturally suggest. The perfect calmness of the king excited the admiration of those who were near his person, and a few hearts in the multitude, touched with pity, gave utterance to the cry of "Pardon! pardon!" The sounds, however, died away in the throng, awakening no sympathetic response. As the procession moved along, no sound proceeded from human lips. A feeling of awe appeared to have taken possession of the whole city. The sentiment of loyalty had, for so many centuries, pervaded the bosoms of the French people, that they could not conduct their monarch to the scaffold without the deepest emotions of awe. A feeling of consternation oppressed every heart in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But it was too late to retract. Perhaps there was not an individual in that vast throng who did not shudder in view of the crime of that day. At one spot on the line of march, seven or eight young men, in the spirit of desperate heroism which the occasion excited, hoping that the pity of the multitude would cause them to rally for their aid, broke through the line, sword in hand, and, rushing toward the carriage, shouted, "Help for those who would save the king." Three thousand young men had enrolled themselves in the conspiracy to respond to this call. But the preparations to resist such an attempt were too formidable to allow of any hopes of success. The few who heroically made the movement were instantly cut down. At the Place de la Revolution, one hundred thousand people were gathered in silence around the scaffold. The instrument of death, with its blood-red beams and posts, stood prominent above the multitudinous assemblage in the damp, murky air.

The guillotine was erected in the center of the Place de la Revolution, directly in the front of the garden of the Tuileries. This celebrated instrument of death was invented in Italy by a physician named Guillotin, and from him received its name. A heavy ax, raised by machinery between two upright posts, by the touching of a spring fell, gliding down between two grooves, and severed the head from the body with the rapidity of lightning. The palace in which Louis had passed the hours of his infancy, and his childhood, and the days of his early grandeur; the magnificent gardens of the palace, where he had so often been greeted with acclamations; the spacious Elysian Fields, the pride of Paris, were all spread around, as if in mockery of the sacrifice which was there to be offered. This whole space was crowded with a countless multitude, clustered upon the house tops, darkening the windows, swinging upon the trees, to witness the tragic spectacle of the beheading of their king. Arrangements had been made to have the places immediately around the scaffold filled by the unrelenting foes of the monarch, that no emotions of pity might retard the bloody catastrophe. As the carriage approached the place of execution, the hum of the mighty multitude was hushed, and a silence, as of death, pervaded the immense throng.

At last the carriage stopped at the foot of the scaffold. The king raised his eyes, and said to his confessor, in a low but calm tone, "We have arrived, I think." By a silent gesture the confessor assented. The king, ever more mindful of others than of himself, placed his hand upon the knee of the confessor, and said to the officers and executioners who were crowded around the coach, "Gentlemen, I recommend to your protection this gentleman. See that he be not insulted after my death. I charge you to watch over him." As no one made any reply, the king repeated the admonition in tones still more earnest. "Yes! yes!" interrupted one, jeeringly, "make your mind easy about that; we will take care of him. Let us alone for that." Three of the executioners then approached the king to undress him. He waved them from him with an authoritative gesture, and himself took off his coat, his cravat, and turned down his shirt collar. The executioners then came with cords to bind him to a plank. "What do you intend to do?" he exclaimed, indignantly. "We intend to bind you," they replied, as they seized his hands. To be bound was an unexpected indignity, at which the blood of the monarch recoiled. "No! no!" he exclaimed, "I will never submit to that. Do your business, but you shall not bind me." The king resisted. The executioners called for help. A scene of violence was about to ensue. The king turned his eye to his confessor, as if for counsel. "Sire," said the Abbe Edgeworth, "submit unresistingly to this fresh outrage, as the last resemblance to the Savior who is about to recompense your sufferings." Louis raised his eyes to heaven, and said, "Assuredly there needed nothing less than the example of the Savior to induce me to submit to such an indignity." He then reached his hands out to the executioners, and said, "Do as you will; I will drink the cup to the dregs." Leaning upon the arm of his friend, he ascended the steep and slippery steps of the guillotine; then, walking across the platform firmly, he looked for a moment intently upon the sharp blade of the ax, and turning suddenly to the populace, exclaimed, in a voice clear and distinct, which penetrated to the remotest extremities of the square, "People, I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge. I pardon the authors of my death, and pray God that the blood you are about to shed may never fall again upon France. And you, unhappy people—" Here the drums were ordered to beat, and the deafening clamor drowned his words. The king turned slowly to the guillotine and surrendered himself to the executioners. He was bound to the plank. "The plank sunk. The blade glided. The head fell."

One of the executioners seized the severed head of the monarch by the hair, and, raising the bloody trophy of their triumph, showed it to the shuddering throng, while the blood dripped from it on the scaffold. A few desperadoes dipped their sabers and the points of their pikes in the blood, and, waving them in the air, shouted "Vive la Republique!" The multitude, however, responded not to the cry. Explosions of artillery announced to the distant parts of the city that the sacrifice was consummated. The remains of the monarch were conveyed on a covered cart to the cemetery of the Madeleine, and lime was thrown into the grave that the body might be speedily and entirely consumed.

Over the grave where he was buried Napoleon subsequently began the splendid Temple of Glory, in commemoration of the monarch and other victims who fell in the Revolution. The completion of the edifice was frustrated by the fall of Napoleon. The Bourbons, however, on their restoration to the throne, finished the building, and it is now called the Church of the Madeleine, and it constitutes one of the most beautiful structures of Paris. The spot on which the monarch fell is now marked by a colossal obelisk of blood-red granite, which the French government, in 1833, transported from Thebes, in Upper Egypt. Louis was unquestionably one of the most conscientious and upright sovereigns who ever sat upon a throne. He loved his people, and earnestly desired to do every thing in his power to promote their welfare. And it can hardly be doubted that he was guided through life, and sustained through the awful trial of his death, by the principle of sincere piety. The tidings of his execution sent a thrill of horror through Europe, and fastened such a stigma upon Republicanism as to pave the way for the re-erection of the throne.



CHAPTER XI.

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MARIA ANTOINETTE.

1793

Sufferings of the queen.—Announcement of her husband's death.—Cruel decree.—Maria's defense of her boy.—The dauphin's cell.—The queen summoned to the Conciergerie.—Painful partings.—The Conciergerie.—Loathsome apartments of the queen.—The jailer's wife.—The jailer's daughter.—The garter.—Dignity of the queen during her trial.—She is condemned to death.—The queen dressed for the guillotine.—Her hands bound.—Car of the condemned.—Indignities heaped upon the queen.—Arrival at the guillotine.—The queen's composure.—The queen's prayer.—Maternal love.—The last adieu.—End of the tragedy.

While the king was suffering upon the guillotine, the queen, with Madame Elizabeth and the children, remained in their prison, in the endurance of anguish as severe as could be laid upon human hearts. The queen was plunged into a continued succession of swoons, and when she heard the booming of the artillery, which announced that the fatal ax had fallen and that her husband was headless, her companions feared that her life was also, at the same moment, to be extinguished. Soon the rumbling of wheels, the rolling of heavy pieces of cannon, and the shouts of the multitude penetrating through the bars of her cell, proclaimed the return of the procession from the scene of death. The queen was extremely anxious to be informed of all the details of the last moments of the king, but her foes refused her even this consolation.

Days and nights now lingered slowly along while the captives were perishing in monotonous misery. The severity of their imprisonment was continually increased by new deprivations. No communications from the world without were permitted to reach their ears. Shutters were so arranged that even the sky was scarcely visible, and no employment whatever was allowed them to beguile their hours of woe. About four months after the death of the king, a loud noise was heard one night at the door of their chamber, and a band of armed men came tumultuously in, and read to the queen an order that her little son should be entirely separated from her, and imprisoned by himself. The poor child, as he heard this cruel decree, was frantic with terror, and, throwing himself into his mother's arms, shrieked out, "O mother! mother! mother! do not abandon me to those men. They will kill me as they did papa." The queen was thrown into a perfect delirium of mental agony. She placed her child upon the bed, and, stationing herself before him, with eyes glaring like a tigress, and with almost superhuman energy, declared that they should tear her in pieces before they should touch her poor boy. The officers were subdued by this affecting exhibition of maternal love, and forbore violence. For two hours she thus contended against all their solicitations, until, entirely overcome by exhaustion, she fell in a swoon upon the floor. The child was then hurried from the apartment, and placed under the care of a brutal wretch, whose name, Simon, inhumanity has immortalized. The unhappy child threw himself upon the floor of his cell, and for two days remained without any nourishment. The queen abandoned herself to utter despair. Madame Elizabeth and Maria Theresa performed all the service of the chamber, making the beds, sweeping the room, and attending upon the queen. No importunities on the part of Maria Antoinette could obtain for her the favor of a single interview with her child.

Three more months passed slowly away, when, early in August, the queen was aroused from her sleep at midnight by armed men, with lanterns, bursting into her room. With unfeeling barbarity, they ordered her to accompany them to the prison of the Conciergerie, the most dismal prison in Paris, where those doomed to die awaited their execution. The queen listened, unmoved, to the order, for her heart had now become callous even to woe. Her daughter and Madame Elizabeth threw themselves at the feet of the officers, and most pathetically, but unavailingly, implored them not to deprive them of their only remaining solace. The queen was compelled to rise and dress in the presence of the wretches who exulted over her abasement. She clasped her daughter for one frantic moment convulsively to her heart, covered her with embraces and kisses, spoke a few words of impassioned tenderness to her sister, and then, as if striving by violence to throw herself from the room, she inadvertently struck her forehead a severe blow against the low portal of the door. "Did you hurt you?" inquired one of the men. "Oh no!" was the despairing reply, "nothing now can further harm me."

A few lights glimmered dimly from the street lamps as the queen entered the carriage, guarded by soldiers, and was conveyed through the somber streets to her last earthly abode. The prison of the Conciergerie consists of a series of subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the Palais de Justice. More damp, dark, gloomy dens of stone and iron the imagination can not conceive. Down the dripping and slippery steps she was led, groping her way by the feeble light of a tallow candle, until she approached, through a labyrinth of corridors, an iron door. It grated upon its hinges, and she was thrust in, two soldiers accompanying her, and the door was closed. It was midnight. The lantern gave just light enough to show her the horrors of her cell. The floor was covered with mud and water, while little streams trickled down the stone walls. A miserable pallet in one corner, an old pine table and one chair, were all the comforts the kingdom of France could afford its queen.



The heart of the wife of the jailer was touched with compassion in view of this unmitigated misery. She did not dare to speak words of kindness, for they would be reported by the guard. She, however, prepared for her some food, ventured to loan her some needles, and a ball of worsted, and communicated intelligence of her daughter and son. The Committee of Public Safety heard of these acts of mercy, and the jailer and his wife were immediately arrested, and plunged into those dungeons into which they would have allowed the spirit of humanity to enter. The shoes of the queen, saturated with water, soon fell from her feet. Her stockings and her dress, from the humidity of the air, were in tatters. Two soldiers, with drawn swords, were stationed by her side night and day, with the command never, even for one moment, to turn their eyes from her. The daughter of the new jailer, touched with compassion, and regardless of the fate of the predecessors of her parents, entered her cell every morning to dress her whitened locks, which sorrow had bleached. The queen ventured one day to solicit an additional counterpane for her bed. "How dare you make such a request?" replied the solicitor general of the commune; "you deserve to be sent to the guillotine!" The queen succeeded secretly, by means of a tooth-pick, which she converted into a tapestry needle, in plaiting a garter from thread which she plucked from an old woollen coverlet. This memorial of a mother's love she contrived, by stratagem, to transmit to her daughter. This was the richest legacy the daughter of Maria Theresa and the Queen of France could bequeath to her child. That garter is still preserved as a sacred relic by those who revere the memory and commiserate the misfortunes of Maria Antoinette.

Two months of this all but insupportable imprisonment passed away, when, early in October, she was brought from her dungeon below to the court-room above for her trial. Her accusation was that she abhorred the revolution which had beheaded her husband, and plunged her and her whole family into woes, the remembrance of which it would seem that even eternity could hardly efface. The queen condescended to no defense. She appeared before her accusers in the calm dignity of despair, and yet with a spirit as unbroken and queenly as when she moved in the gilded saloons of Versailles. The queen was called to hear her sentence. It was death within twenty-four hours. Not the tremor of a muscle showed the slightest agitation as the mob, with clappings and shoutings, manifested their hatred for their victim, and their exultation at her doom. Insults and execrations followed her to the stair-case as she descended again to her dungeon. It was four o'clock in the morning. A few rays of the dawning day struggled through the bars of her prison window, and she seemed to smile with a faint expression of pleasure at the thought that her last day of earthly woe had dawned. She called for pen and ink, and wrote a very affecting letter to her sister and children. Having finished the letter, she repeatedly and passionately kissed it, as if it were the last link which bound her to the loved ones from whom she was so soon to be separated by death. She then, as if done with earth, kneeled down and prayed, and with a tranquillized spirit, threw herself upon her bed, and fell into a profound slumber.

An hour or two passed away, when the kind daughter of the jailer came, with weeping eyes and a throbbing heart, into the cell to dress the queen for the guillotine. It was the 14th of October, 1793. Maria Antoinette arose with alacrity, and, laying aside her prison-worn garments of mourning, put on her only remaining dress, a white robe, emblematic of the joy with which she bade adieu to earth. A white handkerchief was spread over her shoulders, and a white cap, bound to her head by a black ribbon, covered her hair. It was a cold and foggy morning, and the moaning wind drove clouds of mist through the streets. But the day had hardly dawned before crowds of people thronged the prison, and all Paris seemed in motion to enjoy the spectacle of the sufferings of their queen. At eleven o'clock the executioners entered her cell, bound her hands behind her, and led her out from the prison. The queen had nerved her heart to die in the spirit of defiance to her foes. She thought, perhaps, too much of man, too little of God. Queenly pride rather than Christian resignation inspired her soul. Expecting to be conducted to the scaffold, as the king had been, in a close carriage, she, for a moment, recoiled with horror when she was led to the ignominious car of the condemned, and was commanded to enter it. This car was much like a common hay cart, entirely open, and guarded by a rude but strong railing. The female furies who surrounded her shouted with laughter, and cried out incessantly, "Down with the Austrian!" "Down with the Austrian!" The queen was alone in the cart. Her hands were tied behind her. She could not sit down. She could not support herself against the jolting of the cart upon the rough pavement. The car started. The queen was thrown from her equilibrium. She fell this way and that way. Her bonnet was crowded over her eyes. Her gray locks floated in the damp morning air. Her coarse dress, disarranged, excited derision. As she was violently pitched to and fro, notwithstanding her desperate endeavors to retain the dignity of her appearance, the wretches shouted, "These are not your cushions of Trianon." It was a long ride, through the infuriated mob, to the scaffold, which was reared directly in front of the garden of the Tuileries. As the car arrived at the entrance of the gardens of the palace where Maria had passed through so many vicissitudes of joy and woe, it stopped for a moment, apparently that the queen might experience a few more emotions of torture as she contemplated the abode of her past grandeur. Maria leaned back upon the railing, utterly regardless of the clamor around her, and fixed her eyes long and steadfastly upon the theater of all her former happiness. The thought of her husband, her children, her home, for a moment overcame her, and a few tears trickled down her cheeks and fell upon the floor of the cart. But, instantly regaining her composure, she looked around again upon the multitude, waving like an ocean over the whole amphitheater, with an air of majesty expressive of her superiority over all earthly ills. A few turns more of the wheels brought her to the foot of the guillotine. It was upon the same spot where her husband had fallen. She calmly, firmly looked at the dreadful instrument of death, scrutinizing all its arrangements, and contemplating, almost with an air of satisfaction, the sharp and glittering knife, which was so soon to terminate all her earthly sufferings. Two of the executioners assisted her by the elbows as she endeavored to descend from the cart. She waited for no directions, but with a firm and yet not hurried tread, ascended the steps of the scaffold. By accident, she trod upon the foot of one of the executioners. "Pardon me!" she exclaimed, with all the affability and grace with which she would have apologized to a courtier in the midst of the social festivities of the Little Trianon. She kneeled down, raised her eyes to heaven, and in a low but heart-rending prayer, all forgetful of herself, implored God to protect her sister and her helpless children. She was deaf to the clamor of the infuriate mob around her. She was insensible to the dishonor of her own appearance, with disheveled locks blinding her eyes, and with her faded garments crumpled and disarranged by the rough jostling of the cart. She forgot the scaffold on which she stood, the cords which bound her hands, the blood-thirsty executioners by her side, the fatal knife gleaming above her head. Her thoughts, true to the irrepressible instincts of maternal love, wandered back to the dungeons from whence she had emerged, and lingered with anguish around the pallets where her orphan, friendless, persecuted children were entombed. Her last prayer was the prayer of agony. She rose from her knees, and, turning her eyes toward the tower of the Temple, and speaking in tones which would have pierced any hearts but those which surrounded her, exclaimed, "Adieu! adieu! once again, my dear children. I go to rejoin your father."

She was bound to the plank. Slowly it descended till the neck of the queen was brought under the groove down which the fatal ax was to glide. The executioner, hardened by deeds of daily butchery, could not look upon this spectacle of the misery of the Queen of France unmoved. His hand trembled as he endeavored to disengage the ax, and there was a moment's delay. The ax fell. The dissevered head dropped into the basket placed to receive it. The executioner seized it by the hair, gushing with blood, raised it high above his head, and walked around the elevated platform of the guillotine, exhibiting the bloody trophy to the assembled multitude. One long shout of "Vive la Republique!" rent the air, and the long and dreadful tragedy of the life of Maria Antoinette was closed.

The remains of the queen were thrown into a pine coffin and hurried to an obscure burial. Upon the records of the Church of La Madeleine we now read the charge, "For the coffin of the Widow Capet, seven francs."



CHAPTER XII.

THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH, THE DAUPHIN, AND THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

1793-1795

The dauphin and the princesses.—Painful uncertainty.—Sufferings of the princesses.—Their dismal cell.—Painful thoughts.—Unwelcome visitors.—The princesses separated.—Brutality of the soldiers.—Elizabeth taken before the tribunal.—A group of noble captives.—Trial of Madame Elizabeth.—Her condemnation.—Sad reverses.—Character of Madame Elizabeth.—Madame Elizabeth at the guillotine.—Execution of her companions.—Death of Madame Elizabeth.—Her faith and piety.—Situation of the dauphin.—The brute Simon.—Inhuman treatment of the dauphin.—He becomes insane.—The reaction.—Change in the dauphin's treatment.—Death of the dauphin.—Sympathy awakened by it.—Situation of the princess royal.—Her deep sufferings.—Sympathy for the princess royal.—She is released.—Arrival of the princess royal in Vienna.—Her settled melancholy.—Love felt for Maria.—She recovers her cheerfulness.—Maria's marriage.—Her present residence.—Advanced age of Maria.—Still retains traces of her early sorrows.

When Maria Antoinette was taken from the Temple and consigned to the dungeons of the Conciergerie, there to await her trial for her life, the dauphin was imprisoned by himself, though but a child seven years of age, in a gloomy cell, where he was entirely excluded from any communication with his aunt and sister. The two latter princesses remained in the room from which the queen had been taken. They were, however, in the most painful uncertainty respecting her fate. Their jailers were commanded to give them no information whatever respecting the external world. Their prison was a living tomb, in which they were allowed to breathe, and that was all. The Princess Elizabeth had surmised, from various little incidents, what had been the fate of the queen, but she tried to cheer the young, and affectionate, and still beautiful child with the hope that her mother yet lived, and that they might meet again. Eight months of the most dreary captivity rolled slowly away. It was winter, and yet they were allowed no fire to dispel the gloom and the chill of their cell. They were deprived of all books. They were not allowed the use of pens or paper. The long winter nights came. In their cell there was but a few hours during which the rays of the sun struggled faintly through the barred windows. Night, long, dismal, impenetrable, like that of Egypt, enveloped them for fifteen hours. They counted the strokes of the clocks in the distant churches. They listened to the hum of the vast and mighty metropolis, like the roar of the surf upon the shore. Reflections full of horror crowded upon them. The king was beheaded. The queen was, they knew not where, either dead or in the endurance of the most fearful sufferings. The young dauphin was imprisoned by himself, and they knew only that the gentle, affectionate, idolized child was exposed to every cruelty which barbarism could inflict upon him. What was to be their own fate? Were they to linger out the remnant of their days in this wretched captivity? Would their inhuman jailers envy them the consolation they found in each other's arms, and separate them? Were they also to perish upon the guillotine, where nearly all whom they had loved had already perished? Were they ever to be released? If so, what joy could there remain on earth for them after their awful sufferings and bereavements? Woes, such as they had endured, were too deep ever to be effaced from the mind. Nearly eight months thus lingered slowly along, in which they saw only brutal and insulting jailers, ate the coarsest food, and were clothed in the unwashed and tattered garb of the prison. Time seemed to have stopped its flight, and to have changed into a weary, woeful eternity.

On the 9th of May, the Princess Elizabeth and her niece, who had received the name of Maria Theresa in memory of her grandmother, were retiring to bed. They were enveloped in midnight darkness. With their arms around each other's necks, they were kneeling at the foot of the bed in prayer. Suddenly a great noise was heard at the door, accompanied with repeated and violent blows, almost heavy enough to shiver the door from its hinges. Madame Elizabeth hastened to withdraw a bolt, which constituted an inner fastening, when some soldiers rushed in with their lanterns, and said to Madame Elizabeth, "You must immediately follow us." "And my niece," replied the princess, ever forgetful of herself in her thoughtfulness for others, "can she go too?" "We want you only now!" was the answer; "we will take care of her by-and-by." The aunt foresaw that the hour for the long-dreaded separation had come. She threw her arms around the neck of the trembling maiden, and wept in uncontrollable grief. The brutal soldiers, unmoved by these tears, loaded them both with reproaches and insults, as belonging to the detested race of kings, and imperiously commanded the Princess Elizabeth immediately to depart. She endeavored to whisper a word of hope into the ear of her despairing niece. "I shall probably soon return again, my dear Maria." "No, citoyenne, you won't," rudely interrupted one of the jailers; "you will never ascend these stairs again. So take your bonnet and come down." Bathing the face of the young girl with her tears, invoking the blessing of heaven upon her, turning again and again to enfold her in a last embrace, she was led out by the soldiers, and conducted down the dark and damp stairs to the gate. Here the soldiers rudely searched her person anew, and then thrust her into a carriage. It was midnight. The carriage was driven violently through the deserted streets to the Conciergerie. The Tribunal was, even at that hour, in session, for in those days of blood, when the slide of the guillotine had no repose from morning till night, the day did not contain hours enough for the work of condemnation. The princess was conducted immediately into the presence of the Revolutionary Tribunal. A few questions were asked her, and then she was led into a hall, and left to catch such repose as she could upon the bench where Maria Antoinette but a few months before had awaited her condemnation.

The morning had hardly dawned when she was again conducted to the Tribunal, in company with twenty-four others, of every age and of both sexes, whose crime was that they were nobles. Ladies were there, illustrious in virtue and rank, who had formerly graced the brilliant assemblies of the Tuileries and of Versailles. Young men, whose family names had been renowned for ages, stood there to answer for the crime of possessing a distinguished name. While looking upon this group of nobles, gathered before that merciless tribunal, where judgment was almost certain condemnation, the public accuser, with cruel irony remarked, "Of what can Madame Elizabeth complain, when she sees herself at the foot of the guillotine, surrounded by her faithful nobility? She can now fancy herself back again in the gay festivities of Versailles."

The charges against Elizabeth were, that she was the sister of a tyrant, and that she loved that royal family whom the nation had adjudged not fit to live. "If my brother had been the tyrant you declare him to have been," the princess remarked, "you would not be where you now are, nor I before you." But it is vain for the lamb to plead with the wolf. She was condemned to die. She listened to her sentence with the most perfect composure, and almost with satisfaction. The only favor she asked was, that she might see a priest, and receive the consolations of religion, according to the faith she professed. Even this request was denied her. The crime of loyalty was of too deep a dye to allow of any, the slightest, mitigation of punishment. From the judgment hall she was led down into one of the dungeons of the Conciergerie, where, with the rest of her companions, she awaited the execution of their doom. It was, indeed, a melancholy meeting. These illustrious captives had formerly dwelt in the highest splendor which earth allows. They had met in regal palaces, surrounded by all the pomp and grandeur of courts. Now, after months of the most cruel imprisonment, after passing through scenes of the most protracted woe, having been deprived of all their possessions, of all their ancestral honors, having surrendered one after another of those most dear to them to the guillotine, they were collected in a dark and foul dungeon, cold and wet, hungry and exhausted, to be conveyed in a few hours, in the cart of the condemned, to the scaffold. The character of Elizabeth was such, her weanedness from the world, her mild and heavenly spirit, as to have secured almost the idolatrous veneration of those who knew her. The companions of her misfortunes now clustered around her, as the one to whom they must look for support and strength in this awful hour. The princess, more calm and peaceful even than when surrounded by all the splendors of royalty, looked forward joyfully to the guillotine as the couch of sweet and lasting repose. Faith enabled her to leave the children, now the only tie which bound her to earth, in the hands of God, and, conscious that she had done with all things earthly, her thoughts were directed to those mansions of rest which, she doubted not, were in reserve for her. She bowed her head with a smile to the executioner as he cut off her long tresses in preparation for the knife. The locks fell at her feet, and even the executioners divided them among them as memorials of her loveliness and virtue.

Her hands were bound behind her, and she was placed in the cart with twenty-two companions of noble birth, and she was doomed to wait at the foot of the scaffold till all those heads had fallen, before her turn could come. The youth, the beauty, the innocence, the spotless life of the princess seemed to disarm the populace of their rage, and they gazed upon her in silence and almost with admiration. Her name had ever been connected with every thing that was pure and kind. And even a feeling of remorse seemed to pervade the concourse surrounding the scaffold in view of the sacrifice of so blameless a victim.

One by one, as the condemned ascended the steps of the guillotine to submit to the dreadful execution, they approached Elizabeth and encircled her in an affectionate embrace. At last every head had fallen beneath the ax but that of Elizabeth. The mutilated bodies were before her. The gory heads of those she loved were in a pile by her side. It was a sight to shock the stoutest nerves. But the princess, sustained by that Christian faith which had supported her through her almost unparalleled woes, apparently without a tremor ascended the steps, looked calmly and benignantly around upon the vast multitude, as if in her heart she was imploring God's blessing upon them, and surrendered herself to the executioner. Probably not a purer spirit nor one more attuned for heaven existed in France than the one which then ascended from the scaffold, we trust, to the bosom of God. Maria Antoinette died with the pride and the firmness of the invincible queen. Elizabeth yielded herself to the spirit of submissive piety, and fell asleep upon the bosom of her Savior. Our thoughts would more willingly follow her to those mansions of rest, where faith instructs us that she winged her flight, than turn again to the prison where the orphan children lingered in solitude and woe.

Young Louis was left in one of the apartments of the Temple, under the care of the brutal Simon, whose commission it was to get quit of him. To send a child of seven years of age to the guillotine because his father was a king, was a step which the Revolutionary Tribunal then was hardly willing to take, out of regard to the opinions of the world. It would be hardly consistent with the character of the great nation to poison the child; and yet, while he lived, there was a rallying point around which the sympathies of royalty could congregate. Louis must die! Simon must not kill him; he must not poison him; he must get quit of him. The public safety demands it. Patriotism demands it. In the accomplishment of this undertaking, the young prince was shut up alone, entirely alone, like a caged beast, in one of the upper rooms of a tower of the Temple. There he was left, day and night, week after week, and month after month, with no companion, with no employment, with no food for thought, with no opportunity for exercise or to breathe the fresh air. A flagon of water, seldom replenished, was placed at his bedside. The door was occasionally half opened, and some coarse food thrown in to the poor child. He never washed himself. For more than a year, his clothes, his shirt, and his shoes had never been changed. For six months his bed was not made, and the unhappy child, consigned to this living burial, remained silent and immovable upon the impure pallet, breathing his own infection. By long inactivity his limbs became rigid. His mind, by the dead inaction which succeeded terror, lost its energy, and became, not only brutalized, but depraved. The noble child of warm affections, polished manners, and active intellect, was thus degraded far below the ordinary condition of the brute.

Thus eighteen months rolled away, and the poor boy became insane through mental exhaustion and debility. But even then he retained a lively sense of gratitude for every word or act of kindness. At one time, the inhuman wretch who was endeavoring by slow torture to conduct this child to the grave, seized him by the hair, and threatened to dash out his brains against the wall. A surgeon, M. Naulin, who chanced to be near by, interfered in behalf of the unhappy victim, and rescued him from the rage of the tyrant. Two pears that evening were given to the half-famished child for his supper. He hid them under his pillow, and went supperless to sleep. The next day he presented the two pears to his benefactor, very politely expressing his regret that he had no other means of manifesting his gratitude.

Torrents of blood were daily flowing from the guillotine. Illustrious wealth, or rank, or virtue, condemned the possessor to the scaffold. Terror held its reign in every bosom. No one was safe. The public became weary of these scenes of horror. A reaction commenced. Many of the firmest Republicans, overawed by the tyranny of the mob, began secretly to long for the repose which kingly power had given the nation. Sympathy was excited for the woes of the imprisoned prince. It is difficult to record, without pleasure, that one of the first acts of this returning sense of humanity consisted in leading the barbarous Simon to the guillotine. History does not inform us whether he shuddered in view of his crimes under the ax. But his crimes were almost too great for humanity to forgive. Louis was placed under the care of more merciful keepers. His wasted frame and delirious mind, generous and affectionate even in its delirium, moved their sympathy and their tears. They washed and dressed their little prisoner; spoke to him in tones of kindness; soothed and comforted him. Louis gazed upon them with a vacant air, hardly knowing, after more than two years of hatred, execration, and abuse, what to make of expressions of gentleness and mercy. But it was too late. Simon had faithfully executed his task. The constitution of the young prince was hopelessly undermined. He was seized with a fever. The Convention, ashamed of the past, sent the celebrated physician Dessault to visit him. The patient, inured to suffering, with blighted hopes and a crushed heart, lingered in silence and patience for a few days upon his bed, and died on the 9th of June, 1795, in the tenth year of his age.

The change which had commenced in the public mind, preparing the way for Napoleon to quell these revolutionary horrors, was so great, that a very general feeling of sympathy was awakened by the death of the young prince, and a feeling of remorse pervaded the conscience of the nation. History contains few stories more sorrowful than the death of this child. To the limited vision of mortals, it is indeed inexplicable why he should have been left by that God, who rules in infinite wisdom and love, to so dreadful a fate. For the solution of this and all other inexplicable mysteries of the divine government, we must look forward to our immortality.

But we must return to Maria Theresa. We left her at midnight, delirious with grief and terror, upon the pallet of her cell, her aunt having just been torn from her embrace. Even the ravages of captivity had not destroyed the exceeding beauty of the princess, now sixteen years of age. The slow hours of that night of anguish lingered away, and the morning, cheerless and companionless, dawned through the grated window of her prison upon her woe. Thus days and nights went and came. She knew not what had been the fate of her mother. She knew not what doom awaited her aunt. She could have no intercourse with her brother, who she only knew was suffering every conceivable outrage in another part of the prison. Her food was brought to her by those who loved to show their brutal power over the daughter of a long line of kings. Weeks and months thus rolled on without any alleviation—without the slightest gleam of joy or hope penetrating the midnight gloom of her cell. It is impossible for the imagination to paint the anguish endured by this beautiful, intellectual, affectionate, and highly-accomplished princess during these weary months of solitude and captivity. Every indulgence was withheld from her, and conscious existence became the most weighty woe. Thus a year and a half lingered slowly away, while the reign of terror was holding its high carnival in the streets of blood-deluged Paris, and every friend of royalty, of whatever sex or age, all over the empire, was hunted down without mercy.

When the reaction awakened by these horrors commenced in the public mind, the rigor of her captivity was somewhat abated. The death of her brother roused in her behalf, as the only remaining child of the wrecked and ruined family, such a feeling of sympathy, that the Assembly consented to regard her as a prisoner of war, and to exchange her with the Austrian government for four French officers whom they held as prisoners. Maria Theresa was led, pale, pensive, heart-broken, hopeless, from her cell, and placed in the hands of the relatives of her mother. But her griefs had been so deep, her bereavements so utter and heart-rending, that this change seemed to her only a mitigation of misery, and not an accession of joy. She was informed of the death of her mother and her aunt, and, weeping over her desolation, she emerged from her prison cell and entered the carriage to return to the palaces of Austria, where her unhappy mother had passed the hours of her childhood. As she rode along through the green fields and looked out upon the blue sky, through which the summer's sun was shedding its beams—as she felt the pure air, from which she had so long been excluded, fanning her cheeks, and realized that she was safe from insults and once more free, anguish gave place to a calm and settled melancholy. She arrived in Vienna. Love and admiration encircled her. Every heart vied in endeavors to lavish soothing words and delicate attentions upon this stricken child of grief. She buried her face in the bosoms of those thus soliciting her love, her eyes were flooded with tears, and she sobbed with almost a bursting heart. After her arrival in Vienna, one full year passed away before a smile could ever be won to visit her cheek. Woes such as she had endured pass not away like the mists of the morning. The hideous dream haunted her by day and by night. The headless trunks of her father, her mother, and her aunt were ever before her eyes. Her beloved brother, suffering and dying upon a beggar's bed, was ever present in her dreams while reposing under the imperial canopy of the Austrian kings. The past had been so long and so awful that it seemed an ever-living reality. The sudden change she could hardly credit but as the delirium of a dream.

Time, however, will diminish the poignancy of every sorrow save those of remorse. Maria was now again in a regal palace, surrounded with every luxury which earth could confer. She was young and beautiful. She was beloved, and almost adored. Every monarch, every prince, every embassador from a foreign court, delighted to pay her especial honor. No heart throbbed near her but with the desire to render her some compensation for the wrongs and the woes which had fallen upon her youthful and guileless heart. Wherever she appeared, she was greeted with love and homage. Those who had never seen her would willingly peril their lives in any way to serve her. Thus was she raised to consideration, and enshrined in the affections of every soul retaining one spark of noble feeling. The past receded farther and farther from her view, the present arose more and more vividly before the eye. Joy gradually returned to that bosom from which it had so long been a stranger. The flowers bloomed beautifully before her eyes, the birds sung melodiously in her ears. The fair face of creation, with mountain, vale, and river, beguiled her thoughts, and introduced images of peace and beauty to dispel the hideous phantoms of dungeons and misery. The morning drive around the beautiful metropolis; the evening serenade; the moonlight sail; and, above all, the voice of love, reanimated her heart, and roused her affections from the tomb in which they so long had slumbered. The smile of youth, though still pensive and melancholy, began to illumine her saddened features. Hope of future joy rose to cheer her. The Duc d'Angouleme, son of Charles X., sought her as his bride, and she was led in tranquil happiness to the altar, feeling as few can feel the luxury of being tenderly beloved.

Upon the fall of Napoleon she returned to France with the Bourbon family, and again moved, with smiles of sadness, among the brilliant throng crowding the palaces of her ancestors. The Revolution of 1830, which drove the Bourbons again from the throne of France, drove Maria Theresa, now Duchesse d'Angouleme, again into exile. She resided for a time with her husband in the Castle of Holyrood, in Scotland, under the name of the Count and Countess of Main; but the climate being too severe for her constitution, she left that region for Vienna. There she was received with every possible demonstration of respect and affection. She now resides in the imperial castle of Prague, a venerated widow, having passed through three-score years and ten of a more varied life than is often experienced by mortals. Even to the present hour, her furrowed cheeks retain the traces, in their pensive expression, of the sorrow which darkened her early years.



* * * * * *



Transcriber's note:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors and to ensure consistent spelling and punctuation in this e-text; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the original book.

2. The chapter summaries in this text were originally published as banners in the page headers, and have been moved to beginning of the chapter for the reader's convenience.

3. The page reference in the Table of Contents for Chapter III has been corrected to show the chapter as beginning on page 78.

THE END