The little prisoner’s sad and longing gaze was continually fixed upon the door, although he knew he could never pass its threshold without permission from his jailers. He often wept, but seemed at last to resign himself to his fate, and mutely obeyed the commands of his tormentors. He would not speak, however.
“Oho, little Capet!” said the cobbler to him one day; “so you are dumb! Well, I am going to teach you to talk, to sing the ‘Carmagnole,’[17] and shout ‘Vive la Republique!’ Oh, yes, you are dumb, are you?”
“If I said all I thought,” returned the poor child, with a touch of his old spirit, “you would call me mad. I am silent because I am afraid of saying too much.”
“Ho! so Monsieur Capet has much to say!” shouted the cobbler with a malicious laugh. “That sounds very aristocratic, but it won’t do with me, do you hear? You are still young, and some allowance should be made for you on that account; but I am your master, and cannot allow such ignorance. I must teach you to understand progress and the new ideas. So, look here! I am going to give you a jews-harp. Your she-wolf of a mother and your dog of an aunt play the piano, you must learn the jews-harp.”
A gleam of anger flashed in the boy’s beautiful blue eyes, and he refused to take the jews-harp, declaring that he never would play on it.
“Never?” cried the cobbler, furiously. “Never? Play on it this moment!”
The child persisted in his determination, and the cobbler—the pen almost refuses to write it—the cobbler seized the defenceless child and beat him most cruelly, but without being able to conquer his will.
“You can punish me if I do wrong,” cried the poor little Prince, “but you must not strike me; do you understand? For you are stronger than I am.”
“I am here to command you, you beast!” roared the cobbler. “I can do what I like! Long live Liberty and Equality!”
On Sunday, the 17th of July, 1793, a report spread through Paris that the Dauphin had been carried off. In order to refute this rumor, which had already begun to create disturbances among the lower classes, a deputation was sent to the Temple by the Committee of Public Safety, with orders that the son of the tyrant should be brought down into the garden where he might be seen. The cobbler obeyed, and unceremoniously demanded of the deputies what the real intentions of the Committee were in regard to little Capet.