"We must look misfortune directly in the eye, and have courage to bear it worthily," said Marie Antoinette." "We are prisoners, and shall long remain so! Let us seek to have a kind of household life even in our prison. Let us make a fixed plan how to spend our days."
"You are right, Marie," replied Louis; "let us arrange how to spend each day. As I am no longer a king, I will be the teacher of my son, and try to educate him to be a good king."
"Do you believe, then, husband, that there are to be kings after this in France?" asked Marie Antoinette, with a shrug.
"Well," answered Louis, "we will at least seek to give him such an education that he shall be able to fill worthily whatever station he may be called to. I will be his teacher in the sciences."
"And I will interest him and our daughter in music and drawing," said the queen.
"And you will allow me to teach my niece to embroider an altar-cover," said Madame Elizabeth.
"And in the evening," said Marie Antoinette, nodding playfully to Princess Lamballe, "in the evening we will read comedies, that the children may learn of our Lamballe the art of declamation. We will seek to forget the past, and turn our thoughts only to the present, whatever it may be. You see that these four days that we have spent here in the Temple have been good schoolmasters for me, and have made me patient, and--but what is that?" exclaimed the queen; "did you not hear steps before the door? It must be something unusual, for it is not yet so late as the officials are accustomed to come.
Where are the children?"
And, in the anxiety of her motherly love, the queen hastened up the little staircase which led to the second story of the Temple, where was the chamber of the dauphin, together with the general sitting-room.
Louis Charles sprang forward to meet his mother, and asked her whether she had come to fulfil her promise, and go out with him into the garden. The queen, instead of answering, clasped him in her arms, and beckoned to Theresa to come to her side. "Oh! my children, my dear children, I only wanted to see you; I--"
The door opened, and the king, followed by his sister, Princess Lamballe, and Madame Tourzel, entered.
"What is it?" cried Marie Antoinette. "Some new misfortune, is it not?"
She was silent, for she now became aware of the presence of both of the municipal officials, who had come in behind the ladies, and in whose presence she would not complain. Manuel, who, since the 10th of August, had been attorney-general--Manuel, the enemy of the queen, the chief supervisor of the prisoners in the Temple, was there--and Marie Antoinette would not grant him the triumph of seeing her weakness.
"You have something to say to us, sir," said the queen, with a voice which she compelled to be calm.
Yes, Manuel had something to say to her. He had to lay before her and the king a decree of the National Assembly, which ordered old parties who had accompanied "Louis Capet and his wife" to the Temple, either under the name of friends or servants, to leave the place at once. The queen had not a word of complaint, but her pride was vanquished; she suffered Manuel to see her tears. She extended her arms, and called the faithful Lamballe to her, mingled her tears with those of the princess, and then gave a parting kiss to Madame de Tourzel and her daughter.
The evening of that day was a silent and solitary one in the rooms of the Temple. Their last servants had been taken away from the royal prisoners, and only Clery, the valet of the king, had been suffered to remain, to wait upon his master. The next morning, however, Manuel came to inform the queen that she would be allowed to have two other women to wait upon her, and gave her a list of names from which she might choose. But Marie Antoinette, with proud composure, refused to accept this offer. "We have been deprived of those who remained faithful to us out of love, and devoted their services to us as a free gift, and we will not supply their places by servants who are paid by our enemies."
"Then you will have to wait upon yourselves," cried Manuel, with a harsh voice.
"Yes," answered the queen, gently, "we will wait upon ourselves, and take pleasure in it."
And they did wait upon themselves; they took the tenderest care one of another, and performed all these offices with constant readiness.
The king had, happily, been allowed to retain his valet, who dressed him, who knew all his quiet, moderate ways, and who arranged every thing for the king in the little study at the Temple, as he had been accustomed to do in the grand cabinet at Versailles. The ladies waited upon themselves, and Marie Antoinette undertook the task of dressing and undressing the dauphin.
The little fellow was the sunbeam which now and then would light up even the sombre apartments of the Temple. With the happy carelessness of infancy, he had forgotten the past, and did not think of the future; he lived only in the present, sought to be happy, and found his happiness when he succeeded in calling a smile to the pale, proud lips of the queen, or in winning a word of praise from the king for his industry and his attention.
And thus the days went by with the royal family-monotonous, sad, and dreary. No greeting of love, no ray of hope came in from the outer world, to lighten up the thick walls of the old building. No one brought the prisoners news of what was transpiring without. They were too well watched for any of their friends to be able to communicate with them. This was the greatest trial for the royal captives. Not a moment, by day or by night, when the eyes of the sentries were not directed toward them, and their motions observed!