Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 72

"Be sure that I shall come," said Toulan, earnestly. "Give me your hand, and let me thank you for your delicate act of kindness. I certainly did you a wrong, for I did not hold you capable of such a deed. I thank you, Simon, I thank you from my heart; and to-morrow morning, punctually at nine, I shall be here to receive my precious possession. Farewell till then, Simon! I have no quiet now, but must run around and see whether every thing seems as usual in the Temple, and our secret undiscovered." He hastened away, and disappeared around the corner.

The whole day Simon was busy with his own thoughts, and engaged in arranging the furniture, with his mind clearly not on his work. In the afternoon he declared that he must go to the Temple again, because in the upper corridor he had left a chest with some utensils in it which were his.

"It seems to me, husband, you are homesick for the Temple," said Jeanne Marie jestingly, "and you are sad because you are no longer in the old, black walls."

"Yes, I am homesick for the Temple," replied Simon, "and that is why I go there."

But he did not take the way to the Temple, but to the city hall, and rang the bell so violently that the porter dashed to the door to open it.

"It is you, citizen," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "I thought something must have happened."

"Something has happened, and I have come to inform the Committee of Safety," answered Simon, impetuously.

"Has it met?"

"Yes, it is in the little council-chamber. You will find an officer at the door, and can let him announce you."

Simon strode forward and found the sentinel before the door, who asked him what his business there was.

"Go in, citizen, and announce that Simon is here, and brings important news, of great peril to the state."

A minute later, Simon was ushered into the hall in which the Safety Committee were a.s.sembled. All those stern-faced men of the republic knew Simon as a faithful and zealous republican, upon whose devotion they could reckon, and whose fidelity was immovable.

"I am come," said Simon, slowly, "I am come to bring an accusation against a certain person as a conspirator against the republic, and a traitor to our liberties."

"Who is it, and what has he done?" asked the chairman, with a cold smile.

"What has he done? He means to do something, and I mean to prevent him. He means to release the wolf's whelp from the Temple. Who knows but he may have done so already, for when I left the Temple this morning, my successor had not come, and little Capet was alone. Who is it that is able to release the boy and the two ladies? It is Toulan, the traitor, the royalist Toulan!"

"Toulan!" replied Petion, with a shrug. "We know very well that Toulan is a traitor, and that the republic can expect only the worst from him that he can do. He was accused once, but escaped merited punishment by flight, and he has unquestionably gone to Coblentz to join the tyrant's brothers there. Our police are watchful, and have discovered not a trace of him."

"Then allow me to put the police on his track," said Simon, laughing. "Be so good as to send a couple of officers to me tomorrow, and I will deliver Toulan, the traitor, into their hands."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TOULAN'S DEATH.

The next morning, at the stroke of nine, Toulan, in the garb of a commissioner, entered the house of the new collector at the Macon gate. Simon received him at the door, and conducted him into the sitting-room.

"You see," said Toulan, "that I am punctual, and I must tell you that I have been almost too impatient to wait. I hope you do not regret your promise, and that you mean to give me the n.o.ble present that you promised me."

"Unfortunately I can not," answered Simon, with a shrug. "My wife insisted on giving you the hair with her own hands, and she has just gone out. You will have to wait for her, if you really are anxious to possess the hair of little Capet."

"Yes, I am anxious to own it," replied Toulan. "The hair of my dear young king will be my most cherished possession, and--"

"Come, come," interrupted Simon, "there you exaggerate. The gold salt's-bottle, which the Austrian gave you, is a great deal dearer to you, is it not? You still have that, have you not?"

"Still have it?" cried Toulan. "I would sooner part with my life than with this remembrancer of Marie Antoinette!"

"Well, then, see which you would rather keep, your life, or the bottle the Austrian gave you," said Simon, with a laugh, as he sprang toward the door and opened it Two officials of the Safety Committee, followed by armed men, entered.

"Have you heard every thing?" asked Simon, triumphantly.

"Yes, we have heard every thing, and we arrest you, Toulan, as a traitor. Take him to the Conciergerie. The authorities will decide what shall be done with him further."

"Well," said Toulan, calmly, "the authorities will, perhaps, do me the honor of letting me go the same way that my king--and my queen have taken, and I shall follow the example of the n.o.ble sufferers, and die for the hallowed cause of royalty. Let us go, that I may not longer breathe the air which the blasphemer and traitor Simon has poisoned. Woe upon you, Simon! In your dying hour think of me, and of what I say to you now: You are sending me to death, that you may live in peace. But you will find no peace on earth, and if no man accuses you, your conscience will. On your dying bed you will see me before you, and on the day of judgment you will hear my voice, accusing you before the throne of G.o.d as a betrayer and murderer.

May my blood come on your head, Simon!"

Simon lived to enjoy his freedom and his money only a short time. At the expiration of a year he fell into lunacy, which soon made him attempt his own life. He died in the Asylum of Bicetre. His wife lived till 1821, in a hospital at Paris, and in her dying hour a.s.serted that little Capet was released in the way above related.

On the next day, there was a great excitement within the Temple, and the Safety Committee repaired thither in a body. The lamplighter, who made his rounds on the evening of the day on which Simon left the Temple, had a.s.serted that the child that lay upon the mattress was not the little Capet. "He must know this," he said, "for he had seen the child daily when he lighted the lamp in the boy's room."

The new keeper, Augustus Lasne, was very much excited at the communication of the lamplighter, and at dawn of the next day repaired to the city hall to report the statement. The Safety Committee resolved on an immediate investigation of the Temple, after pledging one another to the deepest secrecy, and enjoining the same on all the servants at the Temple.

The officials found on the mattress a moaning, feverish boy, in the garments of the dauphin. These they recognized as the ones which the republic had had made a month before for little Capet, but no one could say whether this child, with a body covered with sores, a swollen face, and sunken, l.u.s.treless eyes, was really little Capet or not; no one knew whether sickness had so changed his looks that this stupid, idiotic boy was the one whom they had all known when he was well, as they saw him joyously flitting around. First of all they summoned Doctor Naudin, the director of Hotel Dieu, to examine the boy. He appeared without delay, and declared solemnly and decidedly that this was the same boy whom he had seen there some days before when he visited Simon's wife, only the English sickness which afflicted the child had distorted his limbs, while the cutting off of his hair gave him a changed look, and it was no wonder that the lamplighter failed to recognize him.

Simon, who was summoned to give evidence, a.s.serted the same thing, and affirmed that he recognized little Capet in the sick boy, and that his wife had cut off his hair only the day before. He brought the hair as a complete proof of the ident.i.ty, and it was seen to agree perfectly with that of the sick child.

Yet some of the officials still doubted, and their doubts were increased when on the same day the servant of Count Frotte reported to the Safety Committee that his master had made a sudden and secret journey, accompanied by a boy, whom the count had treated with great deference.

This boy might be the dauphin, whom Count Frotte, in conjunction with Toulan, might have spirited out of the Temple in some secret way, and who must be followed at all hazards. At the same time the government were informed that the Count de St. Prix had left Paris in company with a boy, and had taken the road to Germany.

Chazel, a member of the Convention, was sent secretly to Puy to arrest Frotte and the boy there; and Chauvaine, another member, was ordered to follow the road to Germany, and, if possible, to bring back Count St. Prix.

After a while both of them returned, with nothing accomplished.

Chazel had, indeed, arrested Count Frotte and the boy in Puy, but the count had given such undeniable proofs that the boy was not the dauphin--he had summoned so many unimpeachable witnesses from Paris, who recognized the boy as the son of M. de Gueriviere, who was in Coblentz with the princes, that nothing more remained but to release the count and his comrade.

Chauvaine had not been able to arrest the Count de St. Prix, and had only learned that in company with a boy he had crossed the Rhine and entered Germany.

It was of no use, therefore, to undertake farther investigations, and the conclusion must be firmly held to that the boy in the Temple, whose sickness increased from day to day, was the real Capet, the son of Louis XVI. The suspicion which had been aroused must be kept a deep secret, that the royalists should not take renewed courage from the possibility that the King of France had been rescued. [Footnote: Later investigations in the archives of Paris have brought to light, among other important papers relative to the flight of the prince, a decree of the National Convention, dated Prairial 26 (June 14), 1704, which gave all the authorities orders "to follow the young Capet in all directions." The boy who remained a prisoner in the Temple, died there June 8, 1798, a complete idiot.]

But the secret investigations, and the efforts to draw something from Toulan, caused the authorities to postpone his fate from week to week, from month to month. On the 20th of January he was arrested and taken to the Conciergerie, and not till the month of May did the Convention sentence him to death. The charge was this: that he had accepted presents from the Widow Capet, in particular the gold salt's-bottle, and had made frequent plans to release the Capet family from prison.

On the same day Madame Elizabeth, the sister of Louis XVI., was sentenced to death, on the charge of conducting a correspondence with her brothers, through the agency of Toulan, having for its end the release of the royal family.

When the sentence was read to Madame Elizabeth, she smiled. "I thank my judges that they allow me to go to those I love, and whom I shall find in the presence of G.o.d."

Toulan received his sentence with perfect composure. "The one, indivisible, and exalted republic is just as magnanimous, is it not, as the monarchy was in old times, and it will grant a last favor to one who has been condemned to death, will it not?"

"Yes, it will do that, provided it is nothing impossible. It will gladly grant you a last request."

"Well," said Toulan, "then I ask that I may be executed the same day and the same hour as Madame Elizabeth, the sister of the king, and that I may be allowed to remain by her side at her execution."

"Then you have only till to-morrow to live, Citizen Toulan," replied the presiding officer of the court, "for Elizabeth Capet will be executed to-morrow."