Volume Two—Chapter Fourteen.
Further Separation.
The 3rd of July was the most terrible morning to Louis. Before he was up, and while his mother was by his bedside, some officers came into the room, with an order from the Convention that Louis should be taken from his family, and kept in the most secure room in the Temple. If the queen could have commanded herself so far as to obey at once, and let him go quietly, the unhappy boy might have been less terrified than he was. But this was hardly to be expected. These repeated cruelties had worn out her spirits; and she now made a frantic resistance. For a whole hour she kept off the officers from his bed, and her lamentations were dreadful to hear: so that the terrified boy not only wept, but uttered cries. His aunt and sister, though in tears, commanded themselves so far as to dress him, and thus show that they intended no vain opposition. The officers were made angry by the delay in obeying orders of which they were only the bearers. They did all they could in assuring the queen that no danger to the boy’s life was to be feared, and in promising to convey to the authorities her request that she might see him at meal-times, at least. Then they carried him off, crying bitterly. He never again saw his mother, though she saw him by stealth.
It was not likely that her request about meeting him at meals would be granted; for the very object of separating him was to put out of his head all the ideas of princely power and authority of which the mind of a royal child was likely to be full. The intention was to bring him up with republican ideas and feelings, in order at once to make of him what was then called “a good citizen,” and to render him less an object of hope and expectation to the foreign powers who already gave him the royal titles, and led on their armies, as if to the rescue of a king, while the French nation declared that royalty was abolished, and that they had no king, and would have none. So this sickly, sad, helpless little boy was taken by one of the party from the arms of his mother and aunt, to be brought up in contempt of his family and rank, while the other party were, all over Europe, giving him the title of Louis the Seventeenth, and speaking with reverence of him, as if he sat upon a throne. This unhappy child, called a king, wept without pause for two whole days, begging every one he saw to take him to his mother. The endeavour then was to make him forget her; but though they awed him so that he soon did not dare to speak of her, or to weep, an incident showed that he still pined for her. A report got abroad that he had been seen in one of the public walks of Paris; and others said that he was dead. Some members of the Convention were therefore sent to the Temple, to ascertain the truth. Louis was led down to the garden to be seen by them; and he immediately begged to be taken to his mother; but was told that it was impossible.
Long and wearily did she pine for him. She heard of him frequently, from one of the gaolers; but there was nothing to be told which could cause her anything but grief: for those who had taken from her the charge of her child, did not fulfil the duty they had assumed. She saw this for herself. He often went to the leads; and the queen found a chink in a wall at some distance, through which she could watch him as he walked. Sometimes she waited many hours at this chink, in hopes of his coming: and yet it might have been better for her not to have seen him; for he altered sadly.
It was the duty of the authorities, if they meddled with the boy at all, to have educated him well. Nothing could excuse their not taking him from prison, tending his weak health, and having him kindly cheered and well taught. Instead of this, they committed him to the charge of the man called Simon (mentioned before), a shoemaker, whose business it was to tend and bring up the boy. Simon was a coarse and ignorant man, full of hatred of rank and royalty. He would not let Louis wear mourning for his father, and took away his black clothes. He taught him to sing the rough songs of the day, mocking royalty and praising revolution. Louis never till now drank wine, and had always disliked it. This man made him drink a great deal of wine, and eat to excess, so as to bring on his fever again. This might be meant for kindness; but it shows how unfit a guardian Simon was. Louis recovered less favourably from the second fever than the first. He still walked on the leads; but, instead of growing taller, he was stunted in his growth, and became fat and bloated, and thoroughly unhealthy.
On the 8th of October, just after he had got up, his room-door opened, and his sister ran in. She threw her arms round his neck; but almost before he could express his surprise, she was fetched away. She had been sent for by some people below, who were waiting to question her; and knowing which was Louis’s room, she had run downstairs to it; thus making use of the only opportunity she was likely to have of seeing her brother.
In a little while, these two royal children were each left entirely alone. The queen had been removed early in August, and was beheaded in October, the day week after Louis saw his sister. The good Princess Elizabeth was always persuaded that her turn would come; and so it did. She suffered on the 10th of the next May, when she was thirty years of age. It will be remembered that the king implored her not to enter a convent in her youth, as she desired; and that he obtained her promise to refrain from being a nun till she should be thirty years old. If he had not interfered at first, and if her noble disinterestedness had not caused her to devote herself to her brother and his family when she saw adversity coming upon them, she might have fulfilled a long course of piety and charity, and even been living now. Her life was so innocent, so graced by gentleness and love, that it may well be a matter of wonder on what accusation she could have been tried and put to death. It was the accusation most common at that day—of having conspired with the enemies of the Republic to set up royalty again in France. That she corresponded with the friends of royalty, is probable: that she wished for the re-establishment of the throne, there can be no doubt: but to suppose that she could in her prison conspire for such a purpose is absurd. The true reason of her death no doubt was, that the party-leaders of the time wished to be rid of as many royal personages as possible, and to strike terror into the hearts of all who were not pleased with the Republic. The Princess Royal was not told what had become of her mother and aunt. She remained alone, passing her weary hours in keeping her chamber and clothes neat, in knitting, and in reading a few books, which she had read over and over again.