CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ROYAL MARTYR.
Let us return to the somber edifice confining a king become mere man,a queen still a queen, a maid who would be a martyr, and two poorchildren innocent, from age if not by birth.
The king was in the temple, not the temple tower, but the palace ofthe Knights Templars, which had been used by Artois as a pleasureresort.
The Assembly had not haggled about his keep, but awarded a handsome sumfor the table of one who was a hearty eater, like all the Bourbons.Not only did the judges reprimand him for his untimely gluttony duringhis trial, but they had a note made of the fact to be on record to ourtimes.
In the temple he had three servants and thirteen attendants connectedwith the table. Each day's dinner was composed of four _entrees_--sixvarieties of roast meat, four fancy dishes, three kinds of stews, threedishes of fruit, and Bordeaux, Madeira, and Malvoisie wine.
He and his son alone drank wine, as the queen and the princesses usedwater.
On the material side, he had nothing to complain of; but he lacked air,exercise, sunshine, and shady trees.
Habituated by hunting in the royal forests to glade and covert, hehad to content himself with a green yard, where a few withered treesscattered prematurely blighted leaves on four parterres of yellowedgrass.
Every day at four, the royal family were "walked out" here, as if theywere so many head of stall-fed cattle.
This was mean, unkind, ferocious in its cruelty; but less cruel andferocious than the cells of the pope's dungeons where they had triedto drive Cagliostro to death, or the leads of Venice, or the Spielbergdungeons.
We are not excusing the Commune, and not excusing kings; we are boundto say that the temple was a retaliation, terrible and fatal, butclumsy, for it was making a prosecution a persecution and a criminal amartyr.
What did they look like now--those whom we have seen in their glory?
The king, with his weak eyes, flabby cheeks, hanging lips, and heavy,carefully poised step, seemed a good farmer upset by a great disaster;his melancholy was that of an agriculturist whose barn had been burnedby lightning or his fields swept by a cyclone. The queen's attitude wasas usual, stiff, proud, and dreadfully irritating. Marie Antoinette hadinspired love of grandeur in her time; in her decline, she inspireddevotion, but never pity; that springs from sympathy, and she was neverone for fellow-feeling.
The guardian angel of the family was Princess Elizabeth, in herwhite dress, symbol of her purity of body and soul; her fair hairwas the handsomer from the disuse of powder. The princess royal,notwithstanding the charm of youth, little interested any one; athorough Austrian like her mother, her look had already the scorn andarrogance of vultures and royal races. The little dauphin was morewinning from his sickly white complexion and golden hair; but his eyewas a hard raw blue, with an expression at times older than his age.He understood things too well, caught the idea from a glance of hismother's eye, and showed politic cunning which sometimes wrung tearsfrom those who tormented him.
The Commune were cruel and imprudent; they changed the watchersdaily, and sent spies, under the guise of town officers. These wentin sworn enemies to the king and came out enemies to the death ofMarie Antoinette, but almost all pitying the king, sorrowing for thechildren, and glorifying the Lady Elizabeth. Indeed, what did they seeat the prison? Instead of the wolf, the she-wolf and the whelps--anordinary middle-class family, with the mother rather the gray mare andspitfire, who would not let any one touch the hem of her dress, but ofa brood of tyrants not a trace.
The king had taken up Latin again in order to educate his son, whilethe queen occupied herself with her daughter. The link of communicationbetween the couple was the valet, Clery, attached to the prince royal,but from the king's own servant, Hue, being dismissed, he waited onboth. While hair-dressing for the ladies, he repeated what the kingwanted to transmit, quickly and in undertones.
The queen would often interrupt her reading to her daughter by plunginginto deep and gloomy musing; the princess would steal away on tiptoe tolet her enjoy a new sorrow, which at least had the benefit of tears,and make a hushing sign to her brother. When the tear fell on her ivoryhand, beginning to yellow, the poor prisoner would start back fromher dream, her momentary freedom in the immense domain of thought andmemories, and look round her prison with a lowered head and brokenheart.
Weather permitting, the family had a walk in the garden at one o'clock,with a corporal and his squad of the National Guard to watch them. Thenthe king went up to his rooms on the third story to dine. It was thenthat Santerre came for his rigorous inspection. The king sometimesspoke with him; the queen never; she had forgotten what she owed tothis man on the twentieth of June.
As we have stated, bodily needs were tyrannical in the king, who alwaysindulged in an after-dinner nap; during this, the others remainedsilent around his easy-chair. Only when he woke was the chat resumed.
When the newsboys called out the news items in the evening, Clerylistened, and repeated what he caught to the king.
After supper, the king went into the queen's room to bid hergood-night, as well as his sister, by a wave of the hand, and goinginto his library, read till midnight. He waited before going off tosleep to see the guards changed, to know whether he had a strange facefor the night-watcher.
This unchanging life lasted till the king left the small tower--thatis, up to September 30th.
It was a dull situation, and the more worthy of pity as it wasdignifiedly supported. The most hostile were softened by the sight.They came to watch over the abominable tyrant who had ruined France,massacred Frenchmen, and called the foreigners in; over the queen whohad united the lubricities of Messalina to the license of CatherineII.; but they found a plain old fellow whom they could not tell fromhis valet, who ate and drank heartily and slept soundly, playing piquetor backgammon, teaching Latin and geography to his boy, and puttingpuzzles to his children out of old newspapers; and a wife, proud andhaughty, one must admit, but calm, dignified, resigned, still handsome,teaching her daughter tapestry-work and her son his prayers, speakinggently to the servants and calling them "friends."
The result was that the more the Commune abased the prisoner, and themore he showed that he was like any other man, the more other men tookpity on their fellow-man.
Still, all who came into contact with the royal family did not feelthe same respect and pity. Hatred and revenge were so deeply rootedin these, that the sight of the regal misery supported with domesticvirtues, only brought out rudeness, insults, and actual indignities.
On the king saying that he thought a sentry was tired, the soldierpressed his hat on the more firmly, and said, in the teeth of themonarch:
"My place here is to keep an eye on you and not for you to criticiseme. Nobody has the right to meddle with my business, and you least ofall."
Once the queen ventured to ask a town officer where he came from.
"I belong to the country," he loftily replied, "at least, as much of itas your foreign friends have not taken possession of."
One day a municipal officer said to Clery, loud enough for the kingto overhear: "I would guillotine the lot of them if the regularexecutioner backed out."
The sentinels decked the walls, where the royals came along to gointo the garden, with lines in this style: "The guillotine is astanding institution and is waiting for the tyrant Louis."--"MadameVeto will soon dance on nothing."--"The fat hog must be put on shortrations."--"Pull off the red ribbon he wears--it will do to stranglehis cubs with."
One drawing represented a man hanging, and was labeled: "Louis takingan air-bath."
The worst tormentors were two lodgers in the temple, Rocher,the sapper, and Simon, the notorious cobbler. The latter, whoseharsh treatment of the royal child has made him noted, was insultpersonified. Every time he saw the prisoners, it was to inflict a freshoutrage.
Rocher was the man whom we saw take up the dauphin when Charny fell,and carry him into the House; yet he, placed by Manuel to preve
nt harmbefalling the captives, resembled those boys who are given a bird tokeep--they kill time by plucking out the feathers one by one.
But, however unhappy the prisoners were, they had yet the comfort thatthey were under the same roof.
The Commune resolved to part the king from his family.
Clery had an inkling of the intention, but he could not get atthe exact date until a general searching of the prisoners on thetwenty-ninth of September gave him a hint. That night, indeed, theytook away the king into rooms in the great tower which were wet withplaster and paint and the smell was unbearable.
But the king lay down to sleep without complaining, while the valetpassed the night on a chair.
When he was going out to attend to the prince, whose attendant hestrictly was, the guard stopped him, saying:
"You are no longer to have communications with the other prisoners;the king is not to see his children any more."
As they omitted to bring special food for the servant, the king brokehis bread with him, weeping while the man sobbed.
When the workmen came to finish the rooms, the town officer whosuperintended them came up to the king with some pity, and said:
"Citizen, I have seen your family at breakfast, and I undertake to saythat all were in health."
The king's heart ached at this kind feeling.
He thanked the man, and begged him to transmit the report of hishealth to his dear ones. He asked for some books, and as the man couldnot read, he accompanied Clery down into the other rooms to let himselect the reading matter. Clery was only too glad, as this gave anopportunity of seeing the queen. He could not say more than a fewwords, on account of the soldiers being present.
The queen could not hold out any longer, and she besought to let themall have a meal in company.
The municipal officers weakened, and allowed this until further orders.One of them wept, and Simon said:
"Hang me if these confounded women will not get the water-works runningin my eyes. But," he added, addressing the queen, "you did not do anyweeping when you shot down the people on the tenth of August."
"Ah!" said the queen; "the people have been much misled about ourfeelings toward them. If you knew us better, you would be sorry, likethis gentleman."
So the dinner was served in the old place; it was a feast, for theygained so much in one day, they thought. They gained everything, fornothing more was heard of the Commune's new regulation; the kingcontinued to see his family daily, and to take his meals with them.
One of these days, when he went in, he found the queen sweeping up thedauphin's room, who was unwell. He stopped on the sill, let his headsink on his breast, and sighed:
"Ah, my lady, this is sorry work for a Queen of France, and if theycould see from Vienna what you are doing here! Who would have thoughtthat, in uniting you to my fate, I should ever bring you so low?"
"Do you reckon it as nothing," replied Marie Antoinette, "this glory ofbeing the wife of the best and most persecuted of men?"
This was spoken without an idea there were hearers; but all suchsayings were picked up and diffused to embroider with gold the darklegend of the martyr king.