The Peasant and the Prince Part 11

Clery, the Dauphin's valet at the Tuileries, had been on the watch for an opportunity of returning to his office, after having been left behind on the dreadful 10th of August, when his life had been in the utmost danger. He now heard that the mayor was about to appoint two more servants to wait on the king and the dauphin; and he so earnestly entreated that he might be one, that he obtained the appointment. No one was more pleased than Louis to see Clery again.

It was on the 26th of August, at eight in the evening, that Clery entered once more upon his service. The queen desired him to resume his attendance upon the Dauphin, and to unite with the king's valet in rendering the family as comfortable as they could. The princesses had now been eight days without the attendance of their women; and their hair much needed proper combing and arranging. At supper they asked Clery whether he could dress their hair. His reply was, that he should be happy to do whatever they desired. The officer on guard commanded him aloud to be more guarded in his replies. Poor Clery was aghast at finding that he must not be civil in his expressions to his master and mistress.

Clery did not devote himself exclusively to the service of the Dauphin; for there were at first few, and latterly no other servants than himself, except a man named Tison, and his wife, who did the rough work of the chambers for a time.

The way in which the royal prisoners pa.s.sed their days, for some few months, was as follows:

The king rose at six in the summer, and at seven as winter came on. He shaved himself, and then Clery dressed his hair, and finished his toilette. The king retired to a small turret-chamber, which he made his study, and there kneeled at his prayers, and read religious books till nine o'clock, his guard always taking care that the door was half-open; so that the king could not even kneel to pray in entire privacy.-- Meantime Clery made the bed, and prepared the room for breakfast, and then went down to take up little Louis. After was.h.i.+ng and dressing him, he dressed the queen's hair, and then went to the other princesses, to do the same service for them. This was the opportunity seized for telling the family any news he had been able to obtain of what was going on out of doors. It was almost the only occasion on which he could speak without being overheard by the guards: and even this was contrived with caution. Clery showed, by an appointed sign, that he had something to say; and one of the princesses engaged the guard at the door in conversation, while Clery whispered his news into the ear of the other, as he bent over her head, to dress her hair.--At nine, the princesses and Louis went up to the king's apartment to breakfast, when Clery waited upon them, making haste, when the meal was done, to go down and get the other beds made. At ten, the whole family came down to the queen's apartment, and began the business of the day. Louis said his geography lesson to his father, read history with his mother, and learned poetry by heart; and did his sums with his aunt. His sister did her lessons at the same time. Hers lasted till twelve, while Louis's were over by eleven, when he played by himself for an hour. The queen generally worked at her tapestry-frame; but sometimes she wrote out extracts from books for her daughter's use. When she did this, and when the young princess wrote out sums into her cyphering-book, the officer on guard used to stand looking over their shoulders, to see that they did not, under false pretences, carry on any secret correspondence. It is believed that they did so, notwithstanding all this vigilance; but how they contrived it will probably never be known; for, of course, they have not told their plan, and their gaolers were not aware of it.

At twelve o'clock the ladies changed their dress in the Princess Elizabeth's room, before going out to walk in the garden. The king and queen did not relish this daily walk in the garden, because they rarely went without being insulted: but they persevered as long as the practice was permitted, for the sake of the children. That Louis, particularly, might have air and exercise, they would have made a point of going out, in all but the very worst weather. They were, however, allowed no choice. Wet or dry, rain or s.h.i.+ne, out they must go, at the same hour every day, because the outside guard was changed at that hour; and the officer chose to see, without trouble to himself, that the prisoners were all safe. Several guards were always in attendance upon the steps of the family as they walked; and there was only one walk which they might enter, because workmen were rebuilding the walls in other parts of the inclosure. Louis would thus have benefited little by the hour or two out of doors, if it had not been for good Clery, who seems to have found time to do everything that could serve or please the family.

Clery went out with them every day, and kept Louis at play the whole time,--sometimes at football,--sometimes at quoits,--sometimes at running races.

This daily walk did not long continue the practice of the family; and, though they thought it right not to give it up themselves, some of them were very glad when it was over. Their gaoler treated them with intolerable insolence. He would not stir till they reached the door they were to pa.s.s out at, and then made a prodigious jingling with his great bunch of keys, and kept them waiting, under pretence of not being able to find the key: then he made all the noise he could in drawing the bolts; and, stepping before them, stood in the doorway, with his long pipe in his mouth, with which he puffed smoke into the face of each of the princesses as she pa.s.sed,--the guard bursting into loud laughs at each puff. Wherever they went, the prisoners saw a guillotine, or a gallows, or some vile inscription chalked upon the walls. One of these inscriptions was, "Little cubs must be strangled." Others threatened death, in a gibing way, to the king or the queen. Clery one day saw the king reading some such threat of death, and would have rubbed it out; but the king bade him let it alone.

They had one object of interest in their walks, which, however, they were obliged to conceal. Certain of their devoted friends obtained entrance to the houses whose back windows commanded this garden, and, though afraid to make signals, looked down upon the forlorn party with sympathy which was well understood. Clery one day believed that Madame de Tourzel had watched them during their walk; a lady very like her had so earnestly followed Louis with her eyes through his play. He whispered this to the Princess Elizabeth, who shed tears on hearing it; so persuaded had the royal family been that Madame de Tourzel had perished.--It was not she however: neither had she perished. She was at one of her country estates, hoping that she was kindly remembered by the royal family, and forgotten by their enemies.

One of the most important pieces of intelligence that reached them, they first learned in the course of their walk. A woman at a window which overlooked the garden watched the moment when the guards turned their backs, and held up for an instant a large sheet of pasteboard, on which was written "Verdun is taken." The Princess Elizabeth saw and read this. The woman no doubt thought this good news; and perhaps they, too, were pleased that their friends and the foreign army were fairly in France, and had taken a town on the road to Paris: but we shall see how it turned out to be anything but good news.--After a few weeks they walked no more in the garden, and had only such air and exercise as they could obtain upon the leads of the Temple.

From their walk they came in to dinner at two o'clock, where Clery was again ready to wait, when he became the only remaining servant. This was the hour when Santerre the brewer, now commanding the National Guard of Paris, came daily, with two other officers, to examine all the apartments inhabited by the family. The king sometimes spoke to him,-- the queen never.

After dinner, the king and queen played piquet or backgammon; not because they could enjoy at present any amus.e.m.e.nt of the kind, but because they found means, while bending their heads together over the board, to say a few words unheard by the guard. At four o'clock, the ladies and children left the king, as it was his custom to sleep at this hour. At six Clery and Louis entered the apartment, and Clery gave the boy lessons in writing, and copied, at the king's desire, pa.s.sages from the works of Montesquieu and others, for the use of the Dauphin. Then Clery took Louis to his aunt's room, where they played at ball, and battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, till Louis's supper-time, at eight o'clock.

Meanwhile the queen and the Princess Elizabeth read aloud, till eight o'clock, when they went to Louis, to sit beside him while he had his supper. Then the king amused the children with riddles, which he had found in a collection of old newspapers. All kindly exerted themselves to send Louis cheerful to bed. He was too young, they thought, to lie down with so sad a heart as they each had every night in their prison.

However busy Clery might be, he never failed to be in the king's little study at seven o'clock. Regularly at that hour every evening, a crier stood in the street, close by the tower of the Temple, and proclaimed what had been done that day in the a.s.sembly, the Magistrates' Hall, and in the army. This crier was no doubt sent, or induced to stand in that particular place, by friends of the royal family. In the little turret-room, while all was silent there, Clery could catch what the crier said: and he found means to whisper it to the queen when she had heard Louis say his prayers, and when Clery put him into bed.

Louis had added to his prayer one for the safety and welfare of Madame de Tourzel. He had so well learned the temper and feelings of the guards that were always about the family, that when one of them stood near enough to hear the words of his prayer, he repeated the parts in which persons were named in a whisper.

At nine o'clock, Clery went down to wait at supper. As the Dauphin was never to be left alone, while such guards stood about, his mother and aunt took it in turn to sit beside him; and Clery brought up supper for whichever of them it might be. This afforded opportunity for a few more words of news, if there was any to tell.

After supper the king attended his wife, sister, and daughter to the queen's apartment, shook hands with them as he said good-night, and retired to his little study, where he read till midnight. The guard was changed at midnight; and the king would never go to rest till he knew who was to be on guard. If it was a stranger, he would learn his name.

This kept Clery up too. After he had a.s.sisted the king to undress, he lay down on his small bed, which he had placed beside that of the king, in order to be at hand in case of danger.

Such was the course of the weary days of this unhappy family's imprisonment. The king does not seem to have been troubled by any suspicion that they were all here through his fault; and there was nothing in their conduct to remind him of it. They could not but have felt it; but they probably did not blame, but only mourned over him.

His quietness they called heroism, and his indolent content, patience.

His worst weaknesses were hidden here, where there was nothing to be done. The queen would have been better pleased if he had never spoken to any of their gaolers; but, upon the whole, they managed to persuade themselves and each other that he was a martyr suffering in piety and patience. We should have thought better of him if he had shown himself capable of self-reproach for having done nothing in defence of his crown, his family, and friends, but much towards the destruction of all.

If he had been brave and sincere, however ignorant and mistaken, his family would now have been in a condition of honour and safety, though perhaps exiles from France.

These dreary days were varied by the arrival of bad news; never of good,--though the taking of Verdun at first looked like good news. It does not appear to have occurred to the king that, though his brothers and other friends were nearer than they had been, his most deadly enemies were nearer still,--close round about him, and sure to be made more cruel by every alarm given them by his allies. The nearer the army approached, the greater was the danger of the prisoners. A few minutes after the Princess Elizabeth had read the words on the pasteboard, a new guard arrived, in a pa.s.sion of fear and anger. He bade them all go in; he arrested and carried off Clery's fellow-servant, whom they never saw again, though he got off with a month's imprisonment. While the valet was packing up his clothes, the guard kept shouting to the king, "The drum has beat to arms: the alarm-bell is ringing: the alarm-guns have been fired: the emigrants are at Verdun. If they come here, we shall all perish; but you shall die first." On hearing this, Louis burst into an agony of tears, and ran out of the room. His sister followed, and tried to comfort him. He saw that his father was not frightened. The king was full of hope; but there was more reason for Louis's terror than for his father's expectation of deliverance. Many warnings of the kind occurred, but the king never believed them. One of his guards said to him, one night, that if the invaders advanced, the whole royal family would certainly perish. This man declared that many people pitied the little boy; but that, as the son of a tyrant, he must die with the rest.

The fears of the disorderly people of Paris, who knew that they were ill prepared for an invasion, made them desperate; and they began murdering before the very gates of the prison, all whom they supposed to be the king's friends, and therefore their enemies. It was not likely that the Princess de Lamballe should escape,--she who had been the superintendent of the royal household, and the intimate friend of the queen;--she who, after having been in safety in London, had gone back to France, to share the fortunes of her mistress and friend. This news of the taking of Verdun cost her her life; and a mult.i.tude more were ma.s.sacred during the next three days.

In the night after the news came, the queen, who could not sleep, heard the drums rolling continually. The next day, the 3rd of September, as she was sitting down to backgammon with, the king, at three o'clock, a great clamour was heard in the street. The officer on guard in the room shut the window, and drew the curtains,--knowing well what was the matter. Clery at this moment entered. The queen asked him why he was not at dinner. He replied that he was indisposed,--and well indeed he might feel so. He had just sat down to dinner with Tison and his wife, when something was held up at the window which he knew at a glance to be the head of the Princess de Lamballe. He ran to prevent the queen's hearing of it, if possible.

The king asked some of the officers if his family were in danger; and was told that the people had heard that the royal prisoners had left the Temple, and were crying out for the king to appear at a window; but that this was not to be allowed, as the people must learn to have more confidence in their magistrates. Meantime, curses of the queen were heard without; and one of the guard told her that the people wanted to show her her friend's head, that she might see how tyrants were to be served; and that if she did not go to the window, the people would come up to her.

The queen dropped in a fainting-fit; and the brute left the room. The Princess Elizabeth and Clery lifted the queen into an arm-chair; and Louis helped his sister to try to revive their mother. He put his arms about her neck, and his tears fell upon her face. When she revived, they were glad to see her shed tears. They all went into the Princess Elizabeth's room, where the noise from without was less heard. There the queen stood, silent and motionless, and apparently unaware of all that was said and done in the room. Yet this was the time chosen by a messenger from the mayor for settling some accounts with the king. This man, not understanding the queen's misery, thought, when he saw her lost and motionless, that she remained standing out of respect to him!

The noise continued for two hours; and it is believed that the mob would have burst the doors, and murdered the family, if an officer of the magistrates had not fastened a tricolor ribbon across the great gate,--a symbol which the people always respected. This officer made Clery pay, out of the king's money, for this ribbon, which cost somewhat less than two s.h.i.+llings.

The queen had not slept the night before; this night, her daughter and sister heard her sobs the whole night through, while the continual roll of the distant drums prepared them for new horrors. Nothing more occurred to alarm them, however, for some weeks; and it was long before they knew that the ma.s.sacre which began on that dreadful day was carried on through the two next.

Whatever hopes the king had from abroad soon grew fainter. The army began to retreat before the end of September. One of the reasons of this was that the king's brothers and friends had misled the sovereigns of other countries, by saying that the French nation generally were attached to the king, and that the country people would rise in his favour all along the line of march. They may have believed this themselves: but it was a great mistake; and when the foreign forces entered France, they found the country people universally their enemies.

They would not furnish food, or any other a.s.sistance, and deserted their homes to join the revolutionary forces. Thus, the foreign troops could not get on; and before a month was out, they were retreating, having done the royal cause nothing but harm by taking Verdun.

The people of Paris, encouraged and delighted, now declared royalty abolished in France. The gaolers at once left off calling the family by their t.i.tles, and objected to Clery's making any requests in the name of the king, whom, to his face, they called Louis or Capet. A shoemaker, named Simon, was always in office in the Temple, superintending the management of the prison in some of its departments. This man prided himself upon his rudeness, and would now sometimes say, in the king's hearing, "Clery, ask Capet if he wants anything, that I may not have the trouble of coming up a second time."

Some new linen being at last sent (after the princesses had been obliged to mend their clothes every day, and to sit up to mend the king's after he was in bed), the sempstresses were found to have marked the linen, as usual, with crowned letters; and the princesses were ordered to take out the marks before they were allowed to wear the clothes. As it was found that some correspondence was carried on between the prisoners and their friends without, and the means could not be detected, all their employments looked suspicious in the eyes of their gaolers. After pen, ink, and paper had been forbidden, the queen gave directions to Clery as to what should be done with some chair-covers of tapestry-work which she and her sister-in-law had worked for their amus.e.m.e.nt; but the guard would not let them be sent out of the prison, as they were supposed to contain hieroglyphic figures, which would be understood by the lady to whom they were directed. One day, when Louis was by his mother's side, studying a multiplication-table which Clery had made for him, at her desire, the guard interfered, saying that he was afraid the queen was teaching her son a cipher-language, under pretence of giving him lessons in arithmetic. So the poor boy learned no more arithmetic. While reading history with her son, the queen had many lectures to undergo about giving him a republican education,--lectures which were cruel because they were perfectly useless. The queen knew nothing about republicanism, beyond what she had seen of late in Paris; and she had seen nothing which could induce her to instruct her child in its favour.

Everything that came in and went out was searched; but yet it does not appear that the real means of communication were discovered. The macaroons were broken, the fish cut open, the walnuts split, in search of notes; and none were found. A book which the Princess Elizabeth wished to return to the person who had lent it to her, had all the margins cut off, lest there should be writing on them in invisible ink.

The was.h.i.+ng-bills, and all paper wrappers, were held to the fire, under the same suspicion: and all the folds of the linen from the wash were examined for hidden notes.

Once there was a fancy that the king wished to poison himself; and the guards made poor Clery swallow some essence of soap, bought for the king to shave with. All these things show the dread entertained by the newly freed people of being crushed by foreign powers, and the opinion that prevailed of the selfishness and tyrannical habits of the king and queen. The jealousy and cruelty from which they were now suffering were signs, perhaps, of the ignorance of the people; but they told quite as plainly of a condition of desperate fear. If they had known the truth, they might have discovered that their persecutors were not less wretched than themselves. In point of ignorance of one another's views, wishes, and intents, and of the means of securing the welfare of a nation, it might be difficult to say which party was the least fit to govern.

Now that royalty was declared to be abolished, the family must have pondered night and day what was to become of them, if a foreign army did not come to release them; of which there seemed less chance now than on that summer night when the queen had gazed at the moon, and hoped that another month would restore her to freedom and dignity. She could not now avoid supposing that they might be got rid of by death: yet she heard rumours of another fate. One day she was told that her husband and son were to be imprisoned for life in the castle of Chambord. The king was under forty years of age, and it was early for him to have to quit the activity and enjoyment of life: but what must she have felt as she looked upon her boy, not yet eight years old, and imagined him mured up in a fortress for as long as he might live! She seems to have felt more keenly than anything else any fear or vexation caused to her boy; which was natural enough, as he was the youngest of the party. Almost the only time when she showed any impatience at the behaviour of their guards was when one of them waked Louis suddenly one night, to see whether he was safe in bed.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE FAMILY SEPARATED.

Their sorrows increased as time went on. The king was separated from his family: but when the queen's grief alarmed the gaolers, the party were allowed to take their meals together, on condition of their speaking so as to be heard, and only in French. It now became more necessary than ever for Clery to learn what he could of what was pa.s.sing out of doors; and Louis helped in a plan by which Clery was to tell whatever he could learn. Louis and his sister now played battledore and other games after dinner, in an outer room, their aunt sitting by with her book or work. Clery sat down with his book, and the children made all the noise they could with their play, that Clery might speak to the princess unheard by the guard. Neither he nor the princess raised their heads from their books, and Clery moved his lips as little as he could; so that no one who was not listening could have supposed that he was speaking.

The Dauphin cheered and amused his parents by his childish fun and little pranks; but yet, every one observed that he never forgot that he was in a prison. It was painful to see a boy so young acting with the caution of an old person, from the consciousness of being surrounded by enemies. Some of his caution was owing to fear, and some to the gentleness of his temper. He was never heard to speak of the Tuileries or of Versailles, though it was certain that he had a vivid remembrance of the kind of life he had led there. He thought it would grieve his parents to be reminded of their palaces, and of the days of their power.

One morning, he declared, when asked, that he had seen before an officer who came to guard them for the first time. The officer asked him repeatedly where he had seen him, but Louis would not say. At last, he whispered to his mother, "It was when we were coming back from Varennes." When any guard more civil than the rest appeared on duty, Louis always ran with the good news to the queen. One day, a stone-mason was employed in making holes in the doorway of the outer room, in which large bolts were to be fixed. While the man was at breakfast, Louis amused himself with his tools. This was an opportunity for the king to gratify his well-known taste; and he began to work with the mallet and chisel, to show his boy the way. The mason came back, and, moved by seeing the king so employed, said, "When you get out, you will be able to say that you worked at your own bars."

"Ah!" said the king, "when and how shall I get out?" Louis burst out a-crying; and the king, throwing down the tools, went into his chamber, and paced up and down with long strides.

It appears that the king was touched with somewhat of the same superst.i.tion of which the queen gave occasional tokens,--like many other sufferers in a time of suspense. No one liked to refuse to play with Louis when he wanted to play; so, one afternoon, when the king was very sad, he consented to a game at nine-pins, because his boy asked him.

The Dauphin twice counted sixteen, and then lost the game. "Whenever I get sixteen," exclaimed he, a little vexed, "I always lose the game."

The king, remembering that he was the sixteenth Louis, looked very grave; and Clery thought his mind was superst.i.tiously impressed by the boy's words.

In the beginning of November a feverish complaint attacked the king, and then the whole family in turn. The wife and sister of the king a.s.sisted Clery to nurse him, and often made his bed with their own hands. Louis, who had slept in the king's room since the partial separation of the family, was the next attacked. Not all that the queen could say availed to procure permission to remain with her child during the night. Clery, however, never left him; and Louis had soon an opportunity of showing that he was grateful.

Before the princesses had recovered, poor Clery was more ill, with rheumatic fever, than any of them had been. He made a great effort to rise and attend the king, the first day; but his master, seeing the condition he was in, sent him to bed again, and himself took up his son, and dressed him. Louis scarcely left Clery's bedside all day, bringing him drink, and doing all the little services he could think of. The king found a moment to tell Clery, un.o.bserved, that he should see the physician the next day; and the princesses went to visit him in the evening, when the Princess Elizabeth slipped into his hand some medicine which had been brought for her, as she was yet far from well. It distressed Clery to accept this, and to know how the ladies undertook his duties,--the queen putting Louis to bed, and the Princess Elizabeth dressing the king's hair. The Princess Elizabeth asked for medicines, as if for herself, that Clery might have them, even after he had left his bed, to which he was confined for six days. Among other things she had obtained a box of ipecacuanha lozenges for his cough. Having had no opportunity of giving these to Clery during the day, she left them with Louis when she bade him good-night, thinking that Clery would be up-stairs presently. This was before nine. It was just eleven when Clery came up, to turn down the king's bed. Louis called to him in a low voice; and Clery was afraid that he was ill, as he was not asleep.

"No," Louis said, "I am not ill; but I have a little box to give you. I am glad you are come, at last, for I could hardly keep my eyes open; and they have been shut several times, I believe." Seeing that Clery was moved, Louis kissed him; and then was asleep in a minute.

At five in the morning of the 11th of December, everybody in the Temple was awakened by the noise of cavalry and cannon entering the garden, and the drums beating throughout the city. Louis did not know what this meant; but his parents understood that the king was to be brought to trial, and that this noise arose from the military preparations for the great event. His father took him by the hand, and led him to breakfast, as usual, at nine o'clock. n.o.body said much, because the guards were in the room; but he saw his father and mother look very expressively at each other when he and his father were going downstairs again, at ten o'clock. He went to his lessons, as usual, and was reading to the king, when two officers came from the magistrates, to say that they must immediately take Louis to his mother. Argument was useless; so Clery was desired to go with the boy. On his return, Clery gave comfort to the king by a.s.suring him that Louis really was with his mother.

The king was soon after taken to the Convention, before whom he was to be tried. Never till this day had the queen asked any question of her guards: and to-day she obtained no information, though she made every inquiry she could devise. The king returned at six o'clock; but he was immediately locked up, without seeing any one. No bed had yet been provided for Louis in his mother's room: and this night, she gave up hers to him, and sat up. The princesses were most unwilling to leave her in the state of agitation she was in; but she insisted upon their going to rest. The next day, she implored that if the king might see his wife and sister, his children should not be separated from him. The reply was what might have been expected;--that the children must not be made messengers between their parents; but that they might be with their father, if they did not see the queen, till the trial was over.

Occupied as the king was with his defence, this could not be: nor would he deprive their mother of the solace of their society: so Louis's bed was removed to his mother's room, and no one knew when he would see his father again.

Louis saw his father but once more. It was in the evening of Sunday, the 20th of January. The crier, who came into the street at seven o'clock, proclaimed the sentence that Louis Capet was to be executed the next day.

The family were at last permitted to see the king; and at half-past eight were told that he was ready. The queen took Louis by the hand, and led him downstairs, the princesses following. It appears that the guards had some idea that the king would attempt suicide; for they would not allow him to have a knife at his dinner; and they now would not lose sight of him, even while meeting his family. They would not have allowed the door to be shut, but that it was a gla.s.s door, through which they could look, on any alarm. So far from the king having thought of suicide, it is now believed by most people that he allowed himself to be persuaded by his counsel and friends that there was not really much danger of his execution taking place, and that he would be permitted, at the last moment, to appeal to the Primary a.s.semblies, where an appeal would be successful. This seems confirmed by his conduct on the scaffold. He was, as he had been through life, deceived and mistaken; and the moment of his being undeceived was one of dreadful agony of mind. It deprived him of all dignity and fort.i.tude; and his struggles were such that it required the strength of three executioners to overpower him, and fulfil the sentence. It is to be hoped that his family never knew this; and the ma.s.s of the crowd did not see what happened on the scaffold; but some who did see the whole, have proved beyond a doubt that Louis the Sixteenth showed, at last, no more dignity in his death than in his life.

How much hope he imparted to his family during their evening interview can now never be known; but his legal advisers and his servants gave him such abundant a.s.surances that the sentence could never be really executed upon a king, that the hopes of his family were probably sustained by their words. Not a sound, however, was heard by Clery outside the door. The king sat between his wife and sister, and kept Louis standing between his knees,--the Princess Royal sitting nearly in front. There was much weeping; and most that was said was by the king.

He desired his boy to harbour no revenge against the authors of his death, and then gave him his blessing.