He took the substantiated, or, rather, consecrated, bread, with awful gravity, but with utter calmness.
While the priest was disrobing, the King retired to the little turret; and here, being joined by Cléry, the good servant knelt, and requested the King’s blessing.
Louis XVI raised his hand, and desired him to convey that blessing, through himself, to all who loved their King, and especially to those of his gaolers who had shown to the royal family anything like pity or kindness.
Then, leading the valet to the window, he gave him, so that those watching through the glass of the doors should not see the act, a seal, which he had detached from his watch, a small parcel, taken from his bosom, and the wedding-ring with which, at their royal marriage, the Queen had pledged her faith to him. This ring he took from the hand upon which he had worn it since placed there at his marriage.
“When I am dead,” he said, “you will give this seal to my son, and this ring to the Queen. Tell her that I give it up with great pain, and only because I do not will that it should share in the profanity to which, of course, my body will be subjected. And this little parcel has in it locks of the hair of all my family. Give it, also, to my lady. Say to the Queen, and to my most dear children, and to my sister, that though I promised to see them this morning, I meant to spare them the grief of another bitter separation. It costs me more than I can describe, to go without kissing them again!”
Here he wept, for the last time in his life, it being one of the very few occasions when he was moved to tears.
“I give to you,” he added, in a sweet, low, suppressed voice,—“I give to you my last farewell, to take to those I love!”
Cléry retired, weeping, though his tears were an evidence against him which might cost him his life.
A moment passed, and the King, leaving the little room, asked one of the gaolers for a pair of scissors.