The young girl, who was about fourteen, was seated near the child, who, ill and in bed, closed his eyes as if asleep, although that was utterly impossible, owing to the noise made by the municipals. While some moved the beds, others examined their clothes and linen; the rest, when their search was concluded, remained rudely staring at the unfortunate prisoners, who never even raised their eyes,—the one from her book, the other from her embroidery, and the third from her brother.
The eldest of these women was tall, handsome, and very pale. She appeared to concentrate all her attention on her book, although in all probability her eyes read, but not her mind. One of the municipals approached her, brutally snatched away her book, and flung it into the middle of the room. The prisoner stretched her hand across the table, took up another book, and continued to read.
The Montagnard made a furious gesture, as if he would take away the second, as he had the first; but at this attempt, which startled the prisoner at her embroidery near the window, the young girl sprang forward, and encircling the reader's head with her arms, weeping, exclaimed, "My poor mother! my poor mother!" and then embraced her. As she did so the prisoner placed her mouth to her ear, and whispered: "Marie, there is a letter concealed in the stove; remove it."
"Come! come!" said the municipal, brutally dragging the young girl toward him, and separating her from her mother, "shall you soon have finished embracing?"
"Sir," said the girl, "has the Convention decreed that children shall not embrace their mothers?"
"No; but it has decreed that traitors, aristocrats, and ci-devants shall be punished. That is why I am here to interrogate you. Answer, Antoinette."
She who was thus grossly accosted did not even deign to look at her examiner, but turned her head aside, while a flush passed over her face, pale with grief and furrowed with tears.
"It is impossible," said he, "that you are ignorant of the attempt last night. Whence came it?"
The prisoners still maintained silence.
"Answer, Antoinette," said Santerre, approaching her, without remarking the almost frenzied horror which had seized the young woman at sight of this man, who, on the morning of the 21st of January, conducted Louis XVI. from the Temple to the scaffold. "Reply. They were conspiring last night against the Republic, and seeking your escape from the captivity in which you are kept till you receive that punishment of your crimes which the will of the people may inflict upon you. Tell me, do you know who are the conspirators?"