In accordance with the orders he had received, Simon allowed his prisoner to go down into the garden every day, and sometimes took him with him when he went up on the roof of the Tower to breathe the air and smoke his pipe undisturbed. The boy followed him with hanging head, like a whipped dog; he never ventured to raise his eyes to his master’s face, knowing he should meet only hatred and abuse.
Naturally there was no further mention of any kind of instruction for the Prince. Simon made him listen to revolutionary or so-called patriotic songs, and filled his ears with the vilest oaths and blasphemies; but he did not think it necessary to occupy young Capet’s time otherwise. He forced the child to wait on him and perform the most menial duties; he took away his suit of mourning, and gave him instead a coat of orange-colored cloth, with breeches of the same color, and a red cap, which was the notorious uniform of the Jacobins.
“If I allow you to take off black for Marat,” he said, “at least you shall wear his livery and honor his memory in that way!”
The Prince put on the clothes without protest, but nothing could induce him to wear the Jacobin cap; and Simon was powerless, even by the cruellest treatment, to overcome his resistance. He had become the slave of his jailers, he had submitted to a thousand insults and indignities, but he would not allow the badge of his father’s murderers to be placed upon his head. Weary with his efforts, the cobbler finally desisted from the attempt, at the intercession of his wife. To tell the truth, this was not the first time this woman had taken the part of the unfortunate child, for she, indeed, had good reason to be satisfied with him.
“He is an amiable being, and a nice child,” she remarked one day to another woman. “He cleans and polishes my shoes, and makes the fire for me when I get up,” for these were also his duties now. Alas! what a change from the days when every morning he had brought his adored mother a nosegay from his garden, picked and arranged with his own hands! Now, the drudge of a shoemaker’s wife—poor, lovely, high-born little Prince!
A systematic effort was made to debase the child in every way, morally and physically; no pains were spared to vitiate his pure innocent mind and make him familiar with the most revolting infamies. Madame Simon cut off his beautiful hair for no other reason than because it had been his mother’s delight. As it happened, some guards and deputies witnessed the act, and one of them, a good-natured fellow named Meunier, cried out:
“Oh, what have you slashed off all his pretty hair for?”
“What for?” retorted Madame Simon. “Why, don’t you see, citizen, we were playing the part of dethroned King, here!” And all, with the exception of Meunier, burst into shouts of laughter over the shorn lamb, who bent his poor little disfigured head upon his breast in mute despair. Not content with this outrage, that same evening the brutal wretches forced the child to drink large quantities of wine, which he detested; and when they had succeeded in making him drunk, so that he did not know what he was doing, Simon put the red cap on his head.
“At last I see you a Jacobin!” cried the villain, triumphantly, as the Revolutionary emblem nodded on the brow of the unhappy descendant of Louis the Fourteenth, the proudest King of Christendom! They had broken the child’s noble pride at last—one shudders to think by what terrible means; and from this time a few blows or curses sufficed to make him put on the new head-covering. Thus far the wretched child’s unhappy fate had remained unknown to his mother, although she had never ceased to implore the guards or deputies for news of him. They all assured her that she need not be uneasy about her son—that he was in good hands and well cared for; but all these protestations failed to soothe her maternal anxiety and but too well-founded distrust.
At last, on the thirteenth of July, through the assistance of Tison, who, at first a bitter enemy, had since changed and become friendly to her, she succeeded in obtaining a sight of her poor little son. But alas! this happiness, so long yearned for, so besought from Heaven, was granted her only to her sorrow. The little Prince indeed passed before the eyes of his mother, who bent her anxious, searching gaze upon him. He had laid aside the mourning for his father; the red cap was on his head, his brutal jailer beside him. Unluckily, moreover, just at that moment Simon fell into one of the outbursts of fury that usually vented themselves upon his wretched charge. The poor Queen, struck by this terrible sight as if by lightning, grasped her sister-in-law for support, and both quickly drew the Princess Marie Thérèse away from their place of concealment (whither she had hastened for a glimpse of her brother), at the same time reassuring themselves by a glance that she had seen nothing and remained in blissful ignorance of the Dauphin’s fate.