第166章 CHAPTER IX.(18)
"It is impossible to imagine my distress at finding myself separated from my aunt," says Madame Royale. "Since I had been able to appreciate her merits, I saw in her nothing but religion, gentleness, meekness, modesty, and a devoted attachment to her family; she sacrificed her life for them, since nothing could persuade her to leave the King and Queen. I never can be sufficiently grateful to her for her goodness to me, which ended only with her life. She looked on me as her child, and I honoured and loved her as a second mother. I was thought to be very like her in countenance, and I feel conscious that I have something of her character.
Would to God I might imitate her virtues, and hope that I may hereafter deserve to meet her, as well as my dear parents, in the bosom of our Creator, where I cannot doubt that they enjoy the reward of their virtuous lives and meritorious deaths."
Madame Royale vainly begged to be allowed to rejoin her mother or her aunt, or at least to know their fate. The municipal officers would tell her nothing, and rudely refused her request to have a woman placed with her. "I asked nothing but what seemed indispensable, though it was often harshly refused," she says. "But I at least could keep myself clean. I had soap and water, and carefully swept out my room every day. I had no light, but in the long days I did not feel this privation much . . . .
I had some religious works and travels, which I had read over and over.
I had also some knitting, 'qui m'ennuyait beaucoup'." Once, she believes, Robespierre visited her prison:
[It has been said that Robespierre vainly tried to obtain the hand of Mademoiselle d'Orleans. It was also rumoured that Madame Royale herself owed her life to his matrimonial ambition.]
"The officers showed him great respect; the people in the Tower did not know him, or at least would not tell me who he was. He stared insolently at me, glanced at my books, and, after joining the municipal officers in a search, retired."
[On another occasion "three men in scarfs," who entered the Princess's room, told her that they did not see why she should wish to be released, as she seemed very comfortable! "It is dreadful,'
I replied, 'to be separated for more than a year from one's mother, without even hearing what has become of her or of my aunt.'--'You are not ill?'--'No, monsieur, but the cruellest illness is that of the heart'--' We can do nothing for you. Be patient, and submit to the justice and goodness of the French people: I had nothing more to say." --DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME, "Royal Memoirs," p. 273.]
When Laurent was appointed by the Convention to the charge of the young prisoners, Madame Royale was treated with more consideration. "He was always courteous," she says; he restored her tinderbox, gave her fresh books, and allowed her candles and as much firewood as she wanted, "which pleased me greatly." This simple expression of relief gives a clearer idea of what the delicate girl must have suffered than a volume of complaints.
But however hard Madame Royale's lot might be, that of the Dauphin was infinitely harder. Though only eight years old when he entered the Temple, he was by nature and education extremely precocious; "his memory retained everything, and his sensitiveness comprehended everything." His features "recalled the somewhat effeminate look of Louis XV., and the Austrian hauteur of Maria Theresa; his blue eyes, aquiline nose, elevated nostrils, well-defined mouth, pouting lips, chestnut hair parted in the middle and falling in thick curls on his shoulders, resembled his mother before her years of tears and torture. All the beauty of his race, by both descents, seemed to reappear in him."--[Lamartine]-- For some time the care of his parents preserved his health and cheerfulness even in the Temple; but his constitution was weakened by the fever recorded by his sister, and his gaolers were determined that he should never regain strength.
"What does the Convention intend to do with him?" asked Simon, when the innocent victim was placed in his clutches. "Transport him?"
"No."
"Kill him?"
"No."
"Poison him?"
"No."
"What, then?"
"Why, get rid of him."
For such a purpose they could not have chosen their instruments better.
"Simon and his wife, cut off all those fair locks that had been his youthful glory and his mother's pride. This worthy pair stripped him of the mourning he wore for his father; and as they did so, they called it 'playing at the game of the spoiled king.' They alternately induced him to commit excesses, and then half starved him. They beat him mercilessly; nor was the treatment by night less brutal than that by day.
As soon as the weary boy had sunk into his first profound sleep, they would loudly call him by name, 'Capet! Capet!' Startled, nervous, bathed in perspiration, or sometimes trembling with cold, he would spring up, rush through the dark, and present himself at Simon's bedside, murmuring, tremblingly, 'I am here, citizen.'--'Come nearer; let me feel you.'
He would approach the bed as he was ordered, although he knew the treatment that awaited him. Simon would buffet him on the head, or kick him away, adding the remark, 'Get to bed again, wolfs cub; I only wanted to know that you were safe.' On one of these occasions, when the child had fallen half stunned upon his own miserable couch, and lay there groaning and faint with pain, Simon roared out with a laugh, 'Suppose you were king, Capet, what would you do to me?' The child thought of his father's dying words, and said, 'I would forgive you.'"'--[THIERS]