The Peasant and the Prince

by Harriet Martineau

Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.

The Family Separated.

Their sorrows increased as time went on. The king was separated from his family: but when the queen’s grief alarmed the gaolers, the party were allowed to take their meals together, on condition of their speaking so as to be heard, and only in French. It now became more necessary than ever for Cléry to learn what he could of what was passing out of doors; and Louis helped in a plan by which Cléry was to tell whatever he could learn. Louis and his sister now played battledore and other games after dinner, in an outer room, their aunt sitting by with her book or work. Cléry sat down with his book, and the children made all the noise they could with their play, that Cléry might speak to the princess unheard by the guard. Neither he nor the princess raised their heads from their books, and Cléry moved his lips as little as he could; so that no one who was not listening could have supposed that he was speaking.

The Dauphin cheered and amused his parents by his childish fun and little pranks; but yet, every one observed that he never forgot that he was in a prison. It was painful to see a boy so young acting with the caution of an old person, from the consciousness of being surrounded by enemies. Some of his caution was owing to fear, and some to the gentleness of his temper. He was never heard to speak of the Tuileries or of Versailles, though it was certain that he had a vivid remembrance of the kind of life he had led there. He thought it would grieve his parents to be reminded of their palaces, and of the days of their power. One morning, he declared, when asked, that he had seen before an officer who came to guard them for the first time. The officer asked him repeatedly where he had seen him, but Louis would not say. At last, he whispered to his mother, “It was when we were coming back from Varennes.” When any guard more civil than the rest appeared on duty, Louis always ran with the good news to the queen. One day, a stone-mason was employed in making holes in the doorway of the outer room, in which large bolts were to be fixed. While the man was at breakfast, Louis amused himself with his tools. This was an opportunity for the king to gratify his well-known taste; and he began to work with the mallet and chisel, to show his boy the way. The mason came back, and, moved by seeing the king so employed, said, “When you get out, you will be able to say that you worked at your own bars.”

“Ah!” said the king, “when and how shall I get out?” Louis burst out a-crying; and the king, throwing down the tools, went into his chamber, and paced up and down with long strides.

It appears that the king was touched with somewhat of the same superstition of which the queen gave occasional tokens,—like many other sufferers in a time of suspense. No one liked to refuse to play with Louis when he wanted to play; so, one afternoon, when the king was very sad, he consented to a game at nine-pins, because his boy asked him. The Dauphin twice counted sixteen, and then lost the game. “Whenever I get sixteen,” exclaimed he, a little vexed, “I always lose the game.” The king, remembering that he was the sixteenth Louis, looked very grave; and Cléry thought his mind was superstitiously impressed by the boy’s words.

In the beginning of November a feverish complaint attacked the king, and then the whole family in turn. The wife and sister of the king assisted Cléry to nurse him, and often made his bed with their own hands. Louis, who had slept in the king’s room since the partial separation of the family, was the next attacked. Not all that the queen could say availed to procure permission to remain with her child during the night. Cléry, however, never left him; and Louis had soon an opportunity of showing that he was grateful.

Before the princesses had recovered, poor Cléry was more ill, with rheumatic fever, than any of them had been. He made a great effort to rise and attend the king, the first day; but his master, seeing the condition he was in, sent him to bed again, and himself took up his son, and dressed him. Louis scarcely left Cléry’s bedside all day, bringing him drink, and doing all the little services he could think of. The king found a moment to tell Cléry, unobserved, that he should see the physician the next day; and the princesses went to visit him in the evening, when the Princess Elizabeth slipped into his hand some medicine which had been brought for her, as she was yet far from well. It distressed Cléry to accept this, and to know how the ladies undertook his duties,—the queen putting Louis to bed, and the Princess Elizabeth dressing the king’s hair. The Princess Elizabeth asked for medicines, as if for herself, that Cléry might have them, even after he had left his bed, to which he was confined for six days. Among other things she had obtained a box of ipecacuanha lozenges for his cough. Having had no opportunity of giving these to Cléry during the day, she left them with Louis when she bade him good-night, thinking that Cléry would be up-stairs presently. This was before nine. It was just eleven when Cléry came up, to turn down the king’s bed. Louis called to him in a low voice; and Cléry was afraid that he was ill, as he was not asleep. “No,” Louis said, “I am not ill; but I have a little box to give you. I am glad you are come, at last, for I could hardly keep my eyes open; and they have been shut several times, I believe.” Seeing that Cléry was moved, Louis kissed him; and then was asleep in a minute.

At five in the morning of the 11th of December, everybody in the Temple was awakened by the noise of cavalry and cannon entering the garden, and the drums beating throughout the city. Louis did not know what this meant; but his parents understood that the king was to be brought to trial, and that this noise arose from the military preparations for the great event. His father took him by the hand, and led him to breakfast, as usual, at nine o’clock. Nobody said much, because the guards were in the room; but he saw his father and mother look very expressively at each other when he and his father were going downstairs again, at ten o’clock. He went to his lessons, as usual, and was reading to the king, when two officers came from the magistrates, to say that they must immediately take Louis to his mother. Argument was useless; so Cléry was desired to go with the boy. On his return, Cléry gave comfort to the king by assuring him that Louis really was with his mother.

The king was soon after taken to the Convention, before whom he was to be tried. Never till this day had the queen asked any question of her guards: and to-day she obtained no information, though she made every inquiry she could devise. The king returned at six o’clock; but he was immediately locked up, without seeing any one. No bed had yet been provided for Louis in his mother’s room: and this night, she gave up hers to him, and sat up. The princesses were most unwilling to leave her in the state of agitation she was in; but she insisted upon their going to rest. The next day, she implored that if the king might see his wife and sister, his children should not be separated from him. The reply was what might have been expected;—that the children must not be made messengers between their parents; but that they might be with their father, if they did not see the queen, till the trial was over. Occupied as the king was with his defence, this could not be: nor would he deprive their mother of the solace of their society: so Louis’s bed was removed to his mother’s room, and no one knew when he would see his father again.