Madame Elizabeth followed, leading the Princess Royal.
Cléry closed the door upon the family; and, for the first and last time since their return to Paris from Varennes, they were unwatched. The King was almost dead, and dead men can do no harm, even to revolutionary authorities.
The King gently forced his wife to sit on his right, while his sister he placed on his left; and, as he sat down between them, they put each an arm about his neck, and laid their heads above the heart which, in a few hours, was to cease heating. The Dauphin was on his father’s knee, while the little daughter’s head lay in her father’s lap.
It is said that for more than half an hour not a word was spoken; but the sudden bursts of grief, and especially the Queen’s frantic, terrific screams, were heard not only throughout the prison, but positively in many of the streets adjacent to the gaol.
Yet nature is very good, and enables us to bear our trials by the force of physical weakness. But soon, indeed, the miserable family, their eyes exhausted of tears, were able to talk in low whispers, to console each other, and to give each other many agonized last embraces. This dread agony lasted through an hour and a half. The ex-royal family had been together two hours.
Of those five unhappy people, only the little Princess, aged seven or eight, lived to tell in after years, what happened at that interview. They confided to each other what they had thought about during their separation; repeated promises over and over again to forget and forgive all their enemies, should either of them ever come to power; and, finally, sublime prayers, offered by the King, to the effect that he trusted his death might cause the nation the loss of not one drop of blood. The directions he gave his son (so soon to follow him into the grave) were not royal, but, better, they were Christian.
Those who listened—miserable creatures—heard only a low, sweet murmur.
At last the King rose.
The moment had arrived.
The Queen threw herself at the King’s feet, and entreated him to allow her and her children to remain with him all night. This request, in mercy, he would not grant; but warded off the request by gently intimating that he must have some hours’ tranquillity, in which to gain strength to die fittingly.