During these dreadful hours the queen, with Madame Elizabeth and the children, were in a state of agonizing suspense, not even knowing but that the king was being led to his execution. Clery, however, late in the evening, went to their room and informed them of all the details he had been able to gather respecting the king's examination.
"Has any mention been made of the queen?" asked Madame Elizabeth. "Her name was not mentioned," Clery replied, "in the act of accusation."
"Ah," rejoined the princess, "perhaps they demand my brother's life as necessary for their safety; but the queen—these poor children—what obstacle can their lives present to their ambition?"
FOOTNOTES:
[374] Napoleon at St. Helena, 394.
[375] Peltier.
[376] The queen undressed the dauphin, when he repeated the following prayer, composed by the queen and remembered and recorded by her daughter: "Almighty God, who created and redeemed me, I love you! Preserve the days of my father and my family. Protect us against our enemies. Give my mother, my aunt, my sister, the strength they need to support their troubles."—Lamartine, History of the Girondists, vol. ii., p. 287.
[377] "We must not exaggerate the faults of human nature, and suppose that, adding an execrable meanness to the fury of fanaticism, the keepers of the imprisoned family imposed on it unworthy privations, with the intention of rendering the remembrance of its past greatness the more painful. Distrust was the sole cause of certain refusals. Thus, while the dread of plots and secret communications prevented them from admitting more than one attendant into the interior of the prison, a numerous establishment was employed in preparing their food. Thirteen persons were engaged in the duties of the kitchen, situated at some distance from the tower. The report of the expenses of the Temple, where the greatest decency is observed, where the prisoners are mentioned with respect, where their sobriety is commended, where Louis XVI. is justified from the low reproach of being too much addicted to wine—these reports, which are not liable to suspicion, make the total expenses of the table amount in two months to 28,745 livres ($5749)."—Thiers, vol. ii., p. 26.
[378] "M. Chambon, the successor of Bailly and Pétion, was a learned and humane physician, whom public esteem rather than Revolutionary favor had raised to the dignity of the first magistrate of Paris. Of modéré principles, kind and warm-hearted, accustomed, by his profession, to sympathize with the unfortunate, compelled to execute orders repugnant to his feelings, the pity of the man was visible beneath the inflexibility of the magistrate."—Lamartine, Hist. des Girondistes, vol. ii., p. 321.
[379] "Barrere escaped during the different ebullitions of the Revolution because he was a man, without principle or character, who changed and adapted himself to every side. He had the reputation of being a man of talent, but I did not find him such. I employed him to write, but he displayed no ability. He used many flowers of rhetoric, but no solid argument."—Napoleon at St. Helena.