The Queen, however, still had her husband’s sister and her daughter with her. The only consolation they had, was ascending to the platform of their tower, to catch a glimpse of the boy on the platform of the other tower.
Simon’s work it was to deprave the body and soul of the wretched child. He forced him to drink strong wine, and made him answer to the name of “Wolf.” He beat him if he wept, encouraged him to every possible disgusting act, and compelled him to sing obscene songs, while he (his master) smoked and drank.
Once, he nearly destroyed one of the poor Prince’s eyes; at another, he raised a poker against him. Sometimes he was kind; and, upon one occasion, he said, “Capet, if the soldiers come and deliver you, what will you do?”
“Forgive you,” said the child.
The man Simon actually wept, but he cried immediately afterwards, “There’s some of the blood of the lion in the whelp.”
In the middle of the night of the 2nd of August, the Queen was awakened, and told she was to be removed alone, to another prison.
In vain the women threw themselves at the feet of the men. They had but their duty to do.
The Queen was compelled to dress before them, while they ransacked the room, and seized every little object the Queen still retained. The miserable creatures left her a handkerchief.
And now, exactly as Louis XVI had told his children to forgive their enemies, so now desolate Marie Antoinette told her daughter, in her last words to the poor child, to forgive those who parted them.
“I give my children to you, sister. Be a second mother to them.”