But suddenly the whole family were overwhelmed by a succession of misfortunes. The French Revolution began; the foreign kings invaded France; and the French people looked upon their own royal rulers with suspicion, and even hatred, because they thought they had called in the foreign armies. Marie Antoinette was the most unpopular of all. Paris was filled with terrible disorders. One day a great crowd of savage men and women came out to the palace of Versailles, and insisted that the King and his family should come to Paris. He was obliged to yield. The great coach was ordered, the whole royal family were led almost as captives to the city, and were lodged in the midst of the enraged people, in the palace of the Tuileries. At first they were not badly treated. Louis had brought his dog Moufflet with him, and was even allowed to cultivate a small garden, where he still raised flowers, and gave them to his sad, terrified mother. Dreadful scenes and massacres now took place in Paris. Louis was shown by his mother to the people, wearing a red bonnet and the tricolor; but every moment seemed to increase their danger. At last the King (June, 1791) resolved to make his escape out of France; and one night Louis was called up, half asleep, and dressed in disguise as a little girl. The poor child was too young to understand his danger; and when his sister asked him what he thought they were going to do, said it must be "to act a comedy." They opened a gate in the palace, went down into the silent street at midnight, wandered in the darkness over the Pont Royal, at last found the carriage prepared for them, and escaped from the city. Had they made haste they might have reached the frontier and safety; but they were overtaken, seized, and brought back to Paris the prisoners of a savage mob.
THE ROYAL PRISONERS IN THE TEMPLE.
Soon after, amidst scenes of massacre and horror, they were all taken to the Temple (an ancient prison), and shut up in a tower. Here they remained many months, exposed to the most terrible insults, scantily fed, and looking for death every moment. But the King employed his time in teaching his son Louis to read Racine and Corneille, and endeavoring to prepare him for a useful life. At last he was himself taken out, tried before a revolutionary tribunal, sentenced to die (January, 1793), and his head was cut off. Next, Marie Antoinette was taken away from her family to a solitary prison, and at last was brought to the guillotine. Her hair had turned white, and her face was rigid with suffering. But as she mounted the scaffold she showed no sign of fear. Madame Élisabeth, the most innocent and amiable of her race, was also executed.
The young Prince, now King of France by descent, was left alone, shut up in his prison at the Temple, and guarded by the horrible men who had tormented his mother and father. It was the custom of these wretches to terrify their prisoners by threats, insults, and every malicious art. Louis Charles was placed under the care of the infamous Simon, a monster of cruelty. He was left entirely alone. No kind friend came to soften the sorrows of his lot. Night and day passed over him in his miserable cell without a joy or hope. His mind had become prematurely active amidst his sorrows; he knew, no doubt, the fate of his parents and relations. Simon endeavored to teach him to hate his mother, and the young Prince would never afterward speak to his horrible jailer. He would rather be alone in the darkest night in the fearful cell than see the countenance of his foe. For a long time before his death he remained utterly silent, refusing to speak, and living in dumb misery. The Reign of Terror prevailed in Paris; Robespierre and his murderers filled it with horror, and the Dauphin was left to perish in his solitary cell. He was now nearly ten years old, but he still preserved his strange silence, and seemed like a dumb and idiotic child.
Next Robespierre perished, and Louis might have been better treated. But his long confinement and the filth and horrors of his prison had brought on a severe illness. He wasted away. Dr. Desault, a famous physician, was sent to attend him, but died a short time afterward. Louis, it is said, still remained silent and speechless. He died on the 8th of June, 1795, in his solitary cell, alone, without a friend.
Such was the sad doom of Louis XVII., King of France. The annals of the poor offer no fate so miserable as that of this descendant of the proudest and most powerful of European monarchs. By some writers it is asserted that Louis escaped from his imprisonment, that a child deaf and dumb was substituted for him, and that the King, or Dauphin, died in obscurity in some part of Europe or America. But the legend is improbable, and Louis XVII. sleeps, no doubt, in the cemetery where he was laid at Paris.