Marie Antoinette and Her Son

by L. Mühlbach

Meantime the doctor walked in silence to her bed, and stooped over
Jeanne Marie, who sank back upon the pillow.

"I am the one who is to help you escape from the Temple," he whispered. "Doctor Naudin has sent me, to work in union with him and you in effecting your release and that of the unfortunate Capet."

"Husband," cried Jeanne Marie to the cobbler, who was just coming in, "this is the man who is going to deliver us from this hell!"

"That is to say," said the doctor, with a firm, penetrating voice,
"I will free you if you will help me free the dauphin."

"Speak softly, for God's sake, speak softly," said Simon anxiously. "If any one should hear you, we are all lost! We will do every thing that you demand of us, provided that we can in that way escape from this miserable, good-for-nothing place. The air here is like poison, and to have to stay here is like being buried alive."

"And then the dreams, the frightful dreams," muttered Jeanne Marie, with a shudder. "I cannot sleep any more in this dreadful prison, for that pale, fearful woman, with great, fixed eyes, goes walking about through the Temple every night, and listens at the doors to see whether her children are alive yet, and whether we are not killing them. Lately, she has not only listened at the doors, but she has come into my room, and passed my bed, and gone into the chamber of little Capet. Simon was asleep, and did not see her. I sprang up, however, and stole softly to the door; for I thought somebody had crept in here in disguise, possibly Citizen Toulan, who had already twice made the attempt to release the Austrian and her children, and whom I then denounced at headquarters. There I saw— although it was entirely dark in the hall—there I saw little Capet lying asleep on his mattress, his hands folded over his breast, and with an expression of countenance more happy, altogether more happy, than it ever is when he is awake. Near the mattress kneeled the figure in white, and it seemed as if a radiance streamed out from it that filled the whole room. Its face was pale and white, just like a lily, and it seemed as if the fragrance of a lily was in the apartment. Her two arms were raised, as if she would utter a benediction, over her sleeping boy; around her half-opened lips played a sweet smile, and her great eyes, which had the aspect of stars, looked up toward heaven. But while I was there in a maze, and watched the figure in a, transport of delight, there occurred, all at once, something wonderful, something dreadful. The figure rose from its knees, dropped its arms, turned itself around, and advanced straight toward me. The eyes, which had been turned so purely heavenward before, were directed to me, with a look which pierced my breast like the thrust of a knife. I recognized that look-that sad, reproachful glance. It was the same that Marie Antoinette gave me, when she stood on the scaffold. I was sitting in the front row of the knitters, and I was just going to make the double stitch for her in my stocking, when that look met me; those great, sad eyes were turned toward me, and I felt that she had recognized me, and her eyes bored into my breast, and followed me even after the axe had taken off her head. The eyes did not fall into the basket, they were not buried, bat they remain in my breast; they have been piercing me ever since, and burning me like glowing coals. But that night I saw them again, as in life—those dreadful eyes; and as the figure advanced toward me, it raised its hand and threatened me, and its eyes spoke to me, and it seemed as if a curse of God were going through my brain, for those eyes said to me—'Murder!'—spoke it so loudly, so horribly, that it appeared as if my head would burst, and I could not cry, and could not move, and had to look at it, till, at last, I became unconscious."

"There, see there, doctor," cried Simon, in alarm, as his wife fell back upon the pillow with a loud cry, and quivered in all her limbs; " now she has convulsions again, and then she will be, for a day or two, out of her mind, and will talk strangely about the pale woman with dreadful eyes; and when she goes on so, she makes even me sad, and anxious, and timid, and I grow afraid of the white ghost that she says is always with us. Ah! doctor, help us! See, now, how the poor woman suffers and twists!"

The doctor drew a bottle from his breast-pocket, and rubbed a few drops upon the temples of the sick woman.

"Those are probably the famous soothing-drops of Doctor Naudin?" asked Simon, in astonishment, when he saw how quiet his wife became, and that her spasms and groans ceased.

"Yes," answered the doctor, "and the eminent physician sends them as a present to your wife. They are very costly, and rich people have to pay a louis-d'or for every drop. But Doctor Naudin. gives them to you, for he wishes Jeanne Marie long to enjoy good health. How is it with you now?"