Consequently, the queen had her son's bed put in her rooms, and she did not quit him till removed for trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal, as her husband was by the Convention.
Clery, however, worked communications with a servant of the princesses named Turgy. They exchanged a few words, and passed notes scratched with pins on scraps of paper, on the ladies' side; the king could write properly, as he had writing materials supplied since his trial commenced.
By means of a string, collected from the pieces around the packets of candles, Clery lowered pens, ink, and paper to Princess Elizabeth, whose window was below that of the valet's room.
Hence the family had news of one another daily.
On the other hand, the king's position was morally much worse since he had appeared before the Convention.
It had been surmised that he would either refuse to answer any interrogation, like Charles I., whose history he knew so well; or else that he would answer proudly and loftily in the name of royalty, not like an accused criminal, but a knight accepting the gage of battle.
Unfortunately, Louis was not regal enough to do either act. He so entangled himself that he had to ask for counsel. The one he named fearing to accept the task, it fell to Malesherbes, who had been in the Turgot Ministry, a commonplace man in whom little did any suspect contempt for death. (On the day of his execution, for he was beheaded, he wound up his watch as usual.) Throughout the trial he styled the king "Sire."
Attacked by a flow of blood to the head, the king asked for Dr. Gilbert to be allowed to attend him, but the application was refused, and he was brutally told that if he drank cold water he would not have such a fullness of blood. As he was not allowed a knife to carve his food, unless a servant did it before the guards, so he was not let shave but in the presence of four municipal officers.
On the evening of the twenty-fifth he wrote his will, in which he said that he did not blame himself for any of the crimes of which he was accused. He did not say that they were false. This evasive response was worthy the pupil of the Duke of Vauguyon.