A routine began and lasted unbroken almost till August ended. In that little low cell, more than half underground, dimly lit by the barred window that stood level with the flags outside, day succeeded day without insult, but without relief, and here at last her strait captivity began what the Temple hitherto could never do. Her spirit did not fail, but her body began to weaken, and in her attitude and gesture there had entered the appearance of despair.... Outside the Committee wondered whether their daring might not bear fruit, and whether, to save the Queen, the frontier might not be relieved. But no offer came from the Kings, and the hostage of the Republicans remained useless on their anxious hands.... In Brussels Fersen heard and went wild, talked folly of an immediate march on Paris, cursed Coburg and all rules of war; but Coburg was not to be moved—he knew his trade, and still prepared the sieges.

She had no privacy. All day long a corporal of police and his man sat on guard in a corner of the room. All night her door, in spite of its two great bolts, was guarded. For the rest her wants were served. She asked for a special water from the neighbourhood of what had been Versailles, and she obtained it. They hired books for her. They permitted her good food and the daily expense upon it of a very wealthy woman.[[38]] The porter’s wife and the maid were very tender to her. They put flowers on her small oak table and they marketed at her desire. Her other service wounded her; first an old woman who was useless, the turnkey’s mother; next a young virago, Havel by name, whose rudeness disturbed her. They would let her have no steel—not even the needles with which she was knitting for her little son, nor a knife to cut her food; but more than all there sank into her the intolerable monotony, the fixed doubt, the utter isolation which made the place a tomb. The smallest incident moved her. She would watch her gaolers at their picquet and note the game, she would listen to distant music, she would greet with a dreadful reminiscence of her own the porter’s little son, and cry over him a little and speak of the Dauphin—but this last scene was so vivid that at last they dared no longer bring the child. She kept for consolation all this while, hidden in her bosom, a little yellow glove of her boy’s, and in it a miniature of him and a lock of his hair.

[38]. What would come to a pound a day in our money, and at our scale of living—for the uncooked food alone.

Meanwhile Maubeuge:—

On the day which had seen the Queen enter the Conciergerie the Commander of Maubeuge issued the first warning of danger. The aged, the women and the children were invited to leave the shelter of the fortress and to betake themselves to the open country. That order was but partially obeyed—and still no provisions reached the town.

Now that strong Valenciennes had fallen, the Allies had their business so thoroughly in hand that some debate arose among them whether the main garrison of Maubeuge should be assailed at once or whether the little outlying posts should be picked up first: the large and the small were equally certain to capitulate: there was ample leisure to choose.

Coburg was for the main attack on Maubeuge—but he was not keen—the wretched little force at Cambrai would do to begin with—or even the handful in Le Quesnoy. It was simply a question of the order in which they should be plucked.

The young Duke of York, acting as he was bidden to act from Westminster, proposed to divert some 40,000 men to the capture of Dunkirk; for it must be remembered that all this war was a war of Conquest, that the frontier towns taken were to compensate the Allies after the Revolution had been destroyed, and that Dunkirk was historically a bastion of importance to England, and that all the advance was to end in the annexation of French land.

This march upon Dunkirk has been condemned by most historians because it failed: had it succeeded none could have praised it too highly. Politically it was just in conception (for it gave Britain some balancing advantage against the Austrians their allies), and as a military project it was neither rash nor ill-planned. The force left with Coburg was ample for his task, and nothing could be easier than for the Austrian army alone to reduce (as it did reduce) the worthless garrisons opposed to it, while the English commander was doing English work upon the right.[[39]]