Municipal officers never allowed any member of the royal family to be out of their sight, except when they retired to bed at night. They then locked the doors, and placed a bed against the entrance to each apartment, and there an officer slept, so as to prevent all possibility of egress. Every day Santerre, commander of the National Guard, made a visit of inspection to all the rooms with his staff. At first the royal family had been allowed pen, ink, and paper, but this privilege was soon withdrawn, and at last the cruel and useless measure was adopted of taking from them all sharp instruments, such as knives, scissors, and even needles, thus depriving the ladies not only of a great solace, but of the power of repairing their decaying apparel. It was not the intention of the Legislative Assembly that the royal family should be exposed to needless suffering. Four hundred dollars were placed in their hands at the commencement of their captivity for their petty expenses, and the Governor of the Temple was ordered to purchase for them whatever they might need, five hundred thousand francs ($100,000) having been appropriated by the Convention for their expenses.[377]
They were not allowed to see the daily journals, which would have informed them of the triumphant march of the Allies, but occasionally papers were sent to them which recorded the victories of the Republic. Clery, however, devised a very shrewd expedient to give them some information of the events which were transpiring. He hired a newsman to pass daily by the windows of the Temple, under the pretense of selling newspapers, and to cry out the principal details contained in them. Clery, while apparently busy about the room, was always sure to be near the window at the appointed hour, listening attentively. At night, stooping over the king's bed to adjust the curtains, he hastily whispered the news he had thus gathered. All this required the greatest caution, for a municipal officer was always in the room, watching every movement.
Early in the morning of the 11th of December all Paris was in commotion to witness the trial of the king, which was to commence on that day. The beating of drums in the street, the mustering of military squadrons at their appointed places of rendezvous, the clatter of hoofs, and the rumbling of artillery over the pavements penetrated even the gloomy apartments of the Temple, and fell appallingly upon the ears of the victims there.
The royal family were at breakfast as they heard these ominous sounds, and they earnestly inquired the cause. After some hesitation the king was informed that the Mayor of Paris would soon come to conduct him to his trial, and that the troops gathering around the Temple were to form his escort. He was also required immediately to take leave of his family, and told that he could not be permitted to see them again until after his trial. Expressions of heart-rending anguish and floods of tears accompanied this cruel separation. The king pleaded earnestly and with gushing eyes that, at least, he might enjoy the society of his little son, saying,
"What, gentlemen! deprive me of even the presence of my son—a child of seven years!"
But the commissioners were inexorable. "The Commune thinks," said they, "that, since you are to be au secret during your trial, your son must necessarily be confined either with you or his mother; and it has imposed the privation upon that parent who, from his sex and courage, was best able to support it."
The queen, with the children and Madame Elizabeth, were conducted to the rooms below. The king, overwhelmed with anguish, threw himself into a chair, buried his face in his hands, and, without uttering a word, remained immovable as a statue for two hours. At noon M. Chambon,[378] the Mayor of Paris, with Santerre, commander of the National Guard, and a group of officers, all wearing the tricolored scarf, entered the king's chamber.
Chambon, with solemnity and with a faltering voice, informed the king of the painful object of their mission, and summoned him, in the name of the Convention, as Louis Capet, to appear before their bar.
"Gentlemen," replied the king, "Capet is not my name. It is the name of one of my ancestors. I could have wished that my son, at least, had been permitted to remain with me during the two hours I have awaited you. However, this treatment is but a part of the system adopted toward me throughout my captivity. I follow you, not in obedience to the orders of the Convention, but because my enemies are more powerful than I."