“Let me go, messieurs! Let me go!”
“Where do you wish to go?” they asked him.
“To my father! I will speak to the people—I will beg them not to kill my papa! In the name of God, messieurs, let me go!”
The guards were deaf to his childish appeals; fear for their own heads compelled them to be, but history does not tell us that they were inhuman enough to jeer at the child or make sport of his innocent prayer for his father’s life. Even harder hearts must have been touched by the sight of such sorrow.
About ten o’clock the Queen wished the children to have some breakfast; but they could not eat, and the food was sent away untouched. A moment later cries and yells were heard, mingled with the discharge of firearms. Madame Élisabeth raised her eyes to heaven, and, carried away by the bitterness of her grief, exclaimed:
“Oh, the monsters! They are glad!...”
At these words the Princess Marie Thérèse uttered a piercing scream; the little Dauphin burst into tears; while the Queen, with drooping head and staring eyes, seemed sunk in a stupor almost like death. The shouts of a crier in the street soon informed them yet more plainly that all was over.
For the rest of the day, the poor little Prince hardly stirred from his mother’s side. He kissed her hands, often wet with his tears, and overwhelmed her with sweet childish caresses, which he seemed to feel would comfort her more than words.
“Alas! the tears of an innocent child, they may never cease to flow!” said the Queen, bitterly. “Death is harder for those who survive than for the ones who are gone!”
During the afternoon she asked permission to see Cléry, who had remained with his royal master in the Tower till the last moment. She felt that she must hear the last words and farewells of her martyred husband and treasure them as a precious legacy, and for more than an hour the faithful valet was with her, both absorbed in sorrowful discourse.