“You are a good man. Papa. Who would want to kill you? I will kill them—I will …” My husband took the boy between his knees and said seriously: “My son, promise me that you will never think of avenging my death.”
My son’s lips were set in the stubborn line I knew so well. But the King lifted him on to his knee and said:
“Come now. I want you to lift your hand and swear that you will fulfill your father’s last wish.”
So the little boy lifted his hand and swore to love his father’s murderers.
The time had come for the King to leave us. I clung to him and said:
We shall see you tomorrow? “
At eight o’clock,” said my husband quietly.
“At seven! Please let it be seven.”
He nodded and bade me look to our daughter, who had fainted. My son ran to the guards and” begged them to take him to the gentlemen of Paris so that he could ask them not to let his Papa die.
I could only lift him in my arms and try to comfort him and I threw myself on to my bed and lay there with a child on either side of me and Elisabeth kneeling by my bed in prayer.
All through the night I lay sleepless, shivering on my bed.
I was up in the early morning waiting for him; but he did not come.
dery came to us.
He feared it would distress you too much,” she said.
I sat and waited, thinking of my husband, of our first meeting and what I knew now had been our last.
I did not know how time was passing. I was numb with misery; and suddenly I heard the roll of drums; I heard the shouts of the people.
Underneath my window the sentry cried: “Long live the Republic.”
And I knew that I was a widow.
In the Anteroom
Vewlle Dieu tout-puissant saucer une tete si eh’ ere faurais trap perdu si je la per ds
My dear Sophie, you have no doubt learned by now about the terrible disaster of the removal of the Queen to the Conciergerie and about the decree of that despicable Convention which delivers her to the Revolutionary Tribunal for judgment. Since I heard of this I have no longer been alive, for it is not truly life to exist as I do and to suffer the pains I now endure. If I could but do something to bring about her liberation I think the agony would be less, but I find it terrible that my only resource is to ask others to help her. I would give my life to save her and cannot; and my greatest happiness would be to die for her in order to save her.
Non, jam ah il ny aura plus pour moi de beaux jours, man bonheur est passe, et je suis condamne a d’etemels regrets et a trainer une vie triste et languissante.
They gave me mourning clothes; I had a black dress and petticoat, black silk gloves, and two head scarves of black taffeta.
I looked at them with indifference. I told myself that it could not be long now until the end.
I never went down to the courtyard because I could not bear to go past those rooms which the King had occupied; but with Elisabeth and the children I went to the top of the tower for fresh air; there was a gallery there surrounded by a parapet, and there we would walk during those winter afternoons.
Toulon, one of the guards, had brought to me a ring and a seal and a lock of Louis’s hair. These had been confiscated by the Commune, but Toulon had stolen them and brought them to me because he believed they would comfort me. ” Toulon! A man who had been at the storming of the Tuileries; who had determined on our destruction. He had been set in charge of us because of his fierce revolutionary views; because he was trustworthy and reliable. They had forgotten that he also had a heart.
I had seen the tears in his eyes; I had seen his admiration for our fortitude. He was a brave man. There was another too, named Lepitre, who had been won over to our side.
I still had Clery, the King’s valet, and Turgy, who had been in the kitchen of Versailles; he was a bold and brazen fellow and very brave, for he had managed by fabricating stories about his revolutionary zeal to become one of my guards.
I am thankful to these loyal people; it was they who gave me hope during those dark days. For the first weeks after Louis’s death I would sit listless thinking of the past, full of remorse, accusing myself of a hundred follies.
I would talk to my friends sadly of the loss of the Ring. It was Toulon who said: “Madame, there is still a King of France.”
This was true. My little boy was now Louis XVII. If I could get him out of this prison . if I could join my friends . I was suddenly alive again. I had a purpose.
My little circle was delighted in the change in me. I realised that I was the centre of that little circle, for Elisabeth was too passive to be, the children too young. Toulon and Lepitre thought of all kinds of ways of smuggling news in to me. Turgy, who served meals, would wrap notes round the corks of bottles so that it would appear that the paper had been put there to make them fit more securely; and although the Tisons would examine the bread to see if notes H were in it and peer under the covers of dishes, they never id discovered this ruse. Turgy sometimes would carry notes in his pockets and at an arranged signal one of us would lift them out as he brushed past when serving us. From ; Madame Clery shouting the news outside our windows I learned that the whole of Europe was shocked by the execution of Louis; even in Philadelphia and Virginia, murder was shuddered at. All very well to depose a tyrannical monarchy, but not ruthlessly to kill its figurehead, who could scarcely i be entirely responsible.
Sensing the disapproval did nothing to make the Republic more lenient towards us; in fact it increased their severity.
But the thought that I had friends had given me a reason for living: Escape.
And when I heard that Axel was trying to rouse Mercy to action, that he had prevailed upon him to ask the Prince of Coburg to send a regiment of picked men to march on Paris and pluck me from die Temple wild as it was, rejected as it was it put new heart in me. It was the plan of a lover rather than a strategist, just as the night to Varennes had been. I saw now that it indicated a frantic desire for my safety which was too passionate in its Intensity to be practical. And I loved him all the more because of this.
One piece of news which was brought to me was that Jacques Armand had died at the battle of Jemappes. I thought sadly of the lovely little boy whom I had picked up on the road when I so longed for children. He had been my substitute until I had my own. He had never forgiven me for that. and now, poor boy, he was dead.
I spoke to Elisabeth of the sadness of this and she tried to comfort me, pointing out the different life he had had because of what I had done for him; but I only replied:
“I used him, Elisabeth. I used him as a toy with which to amuse myself for a while. One cannot use people in that way. I see it now. There is so much I see that I did not see then. But one thing I believe, Elisabeth. No woman ever paid more highly for her follies than I have done. If I am given another chance …”
“You will be,” she told me in her placid way. But I was not sure. I lacked her faith.
Each evening the illuminateur came to light the lamps. I welcomed his coming because he had two little boys and I had always loved children.
They were rather dirty, their clothes stained by the oil used in the lamps, for they helped their father. The
