“Qui que tu sois, voilà ton maître
Il l’est, le fut, ou bien doit l’être,”
kissed the ring, and handed it round to be kissed by all the rest, who little supposed that it was a portrait of the unfortunate Louis XVII.
The breathing time given to unhappy Bordeaux came to an end. Tallien was recalled, and his place filled by the ferocious Jullien.
But his position at Paris was too powerful and his friends too numerous to allow him to be at once attacked with impunity. It was Térèzia who was to be the first victim. Robespierre dreaded her influence, her talents, her popularity, her opinions, and the assistance and support she was to Tallien.
The crimes and horrors of the Revolution had now reached their climax. Paris was a scene of blood and terror. No one’s life was safe for an hour, houses were closed, the streets, once so full of life and gaiety, were now paraded by gangs of drunken ruffians, men and women, bent on murder and plunder, or re-echoed to the roll of the tumbrils carrying victims to the scaffold. The prisons were crammed, and yet arrests went on every day. The King, the Queen, and the gentle, saintly Madame Elizabeth, had been murdered; the unfortunate Dauphin, now Louis XVII., and his sister were kept in cruel captivity.
It had been remarked that at the moment of the birth of this most unfortunate of princes, the crown which was an ornament on the Queen’s bed fell to the ground, which superstitious persons looked upon as a bad omen.
Still more strange was the incident related by his uncle, the Comte de Provence, heir presumptive to the crown, which he afterwards wore. It happened immediately after the birth of the first Dauphin, elder brother of Louis XVII., whose early death saved him from the fate of his family.
“The same evening I found on my table a letter carefully enclosed in a double envelope, addressed—
“‘Pour Monsieur seul.’