However busy Cléry might be, he never failed to be in the king’s little study at seven o’clock. Regularly at that hour every evening, a crier stood in the street, close by the tower of the Temple, and proclaimed what had been done that day in the Assembly, the Magistrates’ Hall, and in the army. This crier was no doubt sent, or induced to stand in that particular place, by friends of the royal family. In the little turret-room, while all was silent there, Cléry could catch what the crier said: and he found means to whisper it to the queen when she had heard Louis say his prayers, and when Cléry put him into bed.
Louis had added to his prayer one for the safety and welfare of Madame de Tourzel. He had so well learned the temper and feelings of the guards that were always about the family, that when one of them stood near enough to hear the words of his prayer, he repeated the parts in which persons were named in a whisper.
At nine o’clock, Cléry went down to wait at supper. As the Dauphin was never to be left alone, while such guards stood about, his mother and aunt took it in turn to sit beside him; and Cléry brought up supper for whichever of them it might be. This afforded opportunity for a few more words of news, if there was any to tell.
After supper the king attended his wife, sister, and daughter to the queen’s apartment, shook hands with them as he said good-night, and retired to his little study, where he read till midnight. The guard was changed at midnight; and the king would never go to rest till he knew who was to be on guard. If it was a stranger, he would learn his name. This kept Cléry up too. After he had assisted the king to undress, he lay down on his small bed, which he had placed beside that of the king, in order to be at hand in case of danger.
Such was the course of the weary days of this unhappy family’s imprisonment. The king does not seem to have been troubled by any suspicion that they were all here through his fault; and there was nothing in their conduct to remind him of it. They could not but have felt it; but they probably did not blame, but only mourned over him. His quietness they called heroism, and his indolent content, patience. His worst weaknesses were hidden here, where there was nothing to be done. The queen would have been better pleased if he had never spoken to any of their gaolers; but, upon the whole, they managed to persuade themselves and each other that he was a martyr suffering in piety and patience. We should have thought better of him if he had shown himself capable of self-reproach for having done nothing in defence of his crown, his family, and friends, but much towards the destruction of all. If he had been brave and sincere, however ignorant and mistaken, his family would now have been in a condition of honour and safety, though perhaps exiles from France.
These dreary days were varied by the arrival of bad news; never of good,—though the taking of Verdun at first looked like good news. It does not appear to have occurred to the king that, though his brothers and other friends were nearer than they had been, his most deadly enemies were nearer still,—close round about him, and sure to be made more cruel by every alarm given them by his allies. The nearer the army approached, the greater was the danger of the prisoners. A few minutes after the Princess Elizabeth had read the words on the pasteboard, a new guard arrived, in a passion of fear and anger. He bade them all go in; he arrested and carried off Cléry’s fellow-servant, whom they never saw again, though he got off with a month’s imprisonment. While the valet was packing up his clothes, the guard kept shouting to the king, “The drum has beat to arms: the alarm-bell is ringing: the alarm-guns have been fired: the emigrants are at Verdun. If they come here, we shall all perish; but you shall die first.” On hearing this, Louis burst into an agony of tears, and ran out of the room. His sister followed, and tried to comfort him. He saw that his father was not frightened. The king was full of hope; but there was more reason for Louis’s terror than for his father’s expectation of deliverance. Many warnings of the kind occurred, but the king never believed them. One of his guards said to him, one night, that if the invaders advanced, the whole royal family would certainly perish. This man declared that many people pitied the little boy; but that, as the son of a tyrant, he must die with the rest.
The fears of the disorderly people of Paris, who knew that they were ill prepared for an invasion, made them desperate; and they began murdering before the very gates of the prison, all whom they supposed to be the king’s friends, and therefore their enemies. It was not likely that the Princess de Lamballe should escape,—she who had been the superintendent of the royal household, and the intimate friend of the queen;—she who, after having been in safety in London, had gone back to France, to share the fortunes of her mistress and friend. This news of the taking of Verdun cost her her life; and a multitude more were massacred during the next three days.
In the night after the news came, the queen, who could not sleep, heard the drums rolling continually. The next day, the 3rd of September, as she was sitting down to backgammon with, the king, at three o’clock, a great clamour was heard in the street. The officer on guard in the room shut the window, and drew the curtains,—knowing well what was the matter. Cléry at this moment entered. The queen asked him why he was not at dinner. He replied that he was indisposed,—and well indeed he might feel so. He had just sat down to dinner with Tison and his wife, when something was held up at the window which he knew at a glance to be the head of the Princess de Lamballe. He ran to prevent the queen’s hearing of it, if possible.
The king asked some of the officers if his family were in danger; and was told that the people had heard that the royal prisoners had left the Temple, and were crying out for the king to appear at a window; but that this was not to be allowed, as the people must learn to have more confidence in their magistrates. Meantime, curses of the queen were heard without; and one of the guard told her that the people wanted to show her her friend’s head, that she might see how tyrants were to be served; and that if she did not go to the window, the people would come up to her.
The queen dropped in a fainting-fit; and the brute left the room. The Princess Elizabeth and Cléry lifted the queen into an arm-chair; and Louis helped his sister to try to revive their mother. He put his arms about her neck, and his tears fell upon her face. When she revived, they were glad to see her shed tears. They all went into the Princess Elizabeth’s room, where the noise from without was less heard. There the queen stood, silent and motionless, and apparently unaware of all that was said and done in the room. Yet this was the time chosen by a messenger from the mayor for settling some accounts with the king. This man, not understanding the queen’s misery, thought, when he saw her lost and motionless, that she remained standing out of respect to him!