With the morning some succour began to arrive from their own class, who pitied them, especially from foreigners. Lady Gower’s little son, younger than the Dauphin, was yet of the same measure. The child could therefore wear the change that was sent him from the English Embassy. The King was supplied by a captain of his Swiss, a man as corpulent as himself. The Queen could get linen at least from the Duchesse de Gramont. Her watch and purse were stolen, left behind or lost, but there was plenty of money; one of her women had no less than twenty pounds upon her: there was no need to look further.
At ten an escort brought that broken family back to the reporter’s box. And so daily the long fatigue was endured and the mean lodging of the night. All the Saturday, all the Sunday, the debates continued in their presence. They saw, they half-understood the quarrel between the city, which had determined to be master of their persons, and the Parliament, which refused to forgo its sovereignty. They heard the decree passed that overthrew the statues of the kings throughout Paris. They heard that the palace of the Luxemburg was to be their sumptuous prison; then the long argument against that building, the perpetual demand of the city for their custody; the suggestion of this place and that: the Archbishop’s palace—at last the Temple.
They saw the deputation of the city, with the Mayor at its head, insisting; they heard the Parliament give way, and knew by Sunday evening that Paris would hold them hostages.
On the morrow—a fatal 13th—their Court was removed from them: a few friends only were allowed to remain. Under the wan light of evening two great carriages—still royal, but their drivers’ livery gone and a dull grey replacing it—stood before the door of the Feuillants. The act of imprisonment had begun.
The heavy coaches rolled along the paving. The scene was that of a crowd freed from labour at such an hour, thousands on either side, and a dense escort pushing its armed column through. The sunset and the long twilight were full of halts and summonses; Pétion, with his head thrust through the window, was insisting on a way for Authority: there was a noise of men struggling, sometimes to see, sometimes to save their feet, snatches of songs, cries.
The distance was not quite a mile and a half. For over two hours the coaches pushed and fought their passage up to the Place Vendôme, where the statue of Louis XIV. lay fallen: past the wide boulevards whose width did nothing to disperse the crowd: down at last along the narrow lane of the Temple, till they came to the great pillars of the porch.
THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE
AT THE MOMENT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY’S IMPRISONMENT
All this while the Queen sat silent. Her husband and she and her royal children were still given honour—sat on the front seat of the great carriage; but the ladies who yet followed the Court, the governess of the Children of France, were indignant that Authority should have passed to the officials, and that these should sit wearing their hats of office before France-in-Person. So also when the Royal Family walked across the courtyard to the steps of what had once been Artois’ Palace of the Temple, the deputation of the Commune there present to receive them kept their heads covered and insisted upon their new authority, calling Louis “Sir,” not “Sire,” and preserving in his sight that austere carriage which he had thought the peculiar appanage of kings.
They went up the great staircase, lit splendidly as for a feast, lit as it had been for Artois in the days she so well remembered: the doors shut as upon guests assembled. They followed their warders down a short, walled way through the open night, and saw before them at last, with lamps in every old crocket of the corners, and every window ablaze, the enormous mass of the Tower.