tower. This official demanded, in an angry voice, that they should go to the window and show themselves to the people.

"No, no, they shall not do it," cried the other functionaries.

"Why not?" asked the king. "Come, Marie."

He extended his hand to her, and advanced with her to the window.

"No, don't do it!" cried the official, rushing to the window.

"Why not?" asked the king, in astonishment.

"Well," cried the man, with threatening fist, "the people want to show you the head of Lamballe, that you may see how the nation takes vengeance on its tyrants."

At that same instant there arose behind the window-pane a pale head encircled with long, fair hair, the livid forehead sprinkled with blood, the eyes lustreless and fixed--the head of Princess Lamballe, which the people had dressed by a friseur, to hoist it upon a pike and show it to the queen.

The queen had seen it; staggering she fell back upon a chair; she gazed fixedly at the window, even after the fearful phantom had disappeared. Her lips were open, as if for a cry which had been silenced by horror. She did not weep, she did not complain, and even the caresses of the children, the gentle address of Princess Elizabeth, and the comforting words of the king could not rouse her out of this stupefying of her whole nature.

Princess Lamballe had been murdered, and deep in her soul the queen saw that this was only the prelude to the fearful tragedy, in which her family would soon be implicated.

Poor Princess Lamballe! She had been killed because she had refused to repeat the imprecations against the queen, which they tried to extort from her lips: "Swear that you love liberty and equality; swear that you hate the king, the queen, and every thing pertaining to royalty."

"I will swear to the first," was the princess's answer, "but to the last I cannot swear, for it does not lie in my heart."

This was the offence of the princess, that hate did not lie in her heart--the offence of so many others who were killed on that 3d of September, that dreadful day on which the hordes of Marseilles opened the prisons, in order to drag the prisoners before the tribunals, or to execute them without further sentence.

The days passed by, and they had to be borne. Marie Antoinette had regained her composure and her proud calmness. She had to overcome even this great grief, and the heart of the queen had not yet been broken. She still loved, she still hoped. She owed it to her husband and children not to despair, and better days might come even yet. "We must keep up courage," she said, "to live till the dawn of this better day."

And it required spirit to bear the daily torture of this life! Always exposed to scorn and abuse! Always watched by the eyes of mocking, reviling men! Always scrutinized by Madame Tison, her servant, who followed every one of her motions as a cat watches its prey, and among all these sentinels the most obnoxious of all was the cobbler Simon.

Commissioned by the authorities to supervise the workmen and masons who were engaged in restoring the partially ruined ancient portion of the Temple, Simon had made himself at home within the building, to discharge his duties more comfortably. It was his pleasure to watch this humiliated royal family, to see them fall day by day, and hear the curses that accompanied them at every step. He never appeared in their presence without insulting them, and encouraging with loud laughter those who imitated him in this.

Some of the officials in charge never spoke excepting with dreadful abuse of the king, the queen, and the children.

One of them cried to his comrade in presence of Marie Antoinette: "If the hangman does not guillotine this accursed family, I will do it!"

When the royal family went down to take their walk in the garden, Santerre used to come up with a troop of soldiers. The sentries whom they passed shouldered arms before Santerre; but as soon as he had passed and the king came, they grounded their arms, and pretended not to see him. In the door that led into the garden, Rocher, the turnkey, used to stand, and take his pleasure in letting the royal family wait before unlocking, while he blew great clouds of smoke into their faces from his long tobacco-pipe. The National Guards who stood in the neighborhood used to laugh at this, and hurl all sorts of low, vile words at the princesses. Then, while the royal prisoners were taking their walk, the cannoneers used to collect in the allees through which they wandered, and dance to the music of revolutionary songs which some of them sang. Sometimes the gardeners who worked there hurried up to join them in this dance, and to encircle the prisoners in their wild evolutions. One of these people displayed his sickle to the king one day, and swore that he would cut off the head of the queen with it. And when, after their sad walk, they had returned to the Temple, they were received by the sentinels and the turnkey with renewed insults; and, as if it were not enough to fill the ear with this abuse, the eye too must have its share. The vilest of expressions were written upon the walls of the corridors which the royal party had to traverse. You might read there: "Madame Veto will soon be dancing again. Down with the Austrian she-wolf! The wolf's brood must be strangled. The king must be hanged with his own ribbon!" Another time they had drawn a gallows, on which a figure was hanging, with the expression written beneath, "Louis taking an air-bath!"

And so, even the short walks of the prisoners were transformed into suffering. At first the queen thought she could not bear it, and the promenades were given up. But the pale cheeks of her daughter, the longing looks which the dauphin cast from the closed window to the garden, warned the mother to do what the queen found too severe a task. She underwent the pain involved in this, she submitted herself, and every day the royal pair took the dear children into the garden again, and bore this unworthy treatment without complaint, that the children might enjoy a little air and sunshine.

One day, the 21st of September, the royal family had returned from their walk to their sitting-room. The king had taken a book and was reading; the queen was sitting near him, engaged in some light work; while the dauphin, with his sister Theresa, and his aunt Elizabeth, were in the next room, and were busying each other with riddles. In the open anteroom the two officials were sitting, their eyes fixed upon the prisoners with a kind of cruel pleasure.

Suddenly beneath their windows were heard the loud blast of trumpets and the rattle of drums; then followed deep silence, and amid this stillness the following proclamation was read with a loud voice:

"The monarchy is abolished in France. All official documents will be dated from the first year of the republic. The national seal will be encircled by the words, 'Republic of France.' The national coat-of- arms will be a woman sitting upon a bundle of weapons, and holding in her hand a lance tipped with a liberty-cap."

The two officials had fixed their eyes upon the king and queen, from whose heads the crown had just fallen. They wanted to read, with their crafty and malicious eyes, the impression which the proclamation had made upon them. But those proud, calm features disclosed nothing. Not for a moment did the king raise his eyes from the book which he was reading, while the voice without uttered each word with fearful distinctness. The queen quietly went on with her embroidery, and not for a moment did she intermit the regular motion of her needle.

Again the blast of trumpets and the rattle of drums. The funeral of the royalty was ended, and the king was, after this time, to be known simply as Louis Capet, and the queen as Marie Antoinette. Within the Temple there was no longer a dauphin, no longer a Madame Royale, no longer a princess, but only the Capet family!

The republic had hurled the crowns from the heads of Louis and Marie Antoinette; and when, some days later, the linen which had been long begged for, had been brought from the Tuileries, the republic commanded the queen to obliterate the crown which marked each piece, in addition to the name.

But their sufferings are by no means ended yet. Still there are some sources of comfort left, and now and then a peaceful hour. The crowns have fallen, but hearts still beat side by side. They have no longer a kingdom, but they are together, they can speak with looks one to another, they can seek to comfort one another with smiles, they can cheer each other up with a passing grasp of the hand, that escapes the eye of the sentries! We only suffer half what we bear in common with others, and every thing seems lighter, when there is a second one to help lift the load.

Perhaps the enemies of the king and queen have an instinctive feeling of this, and their hate makes them sympathetic, in order to teach them to invent new tortures and new sufferings.

Yes, there are unknown pangs still to be felt; their cup of sorrows was not yet full! The parents are still left to each other, and their eyes are still allowed to rest upon their children! But the "one and indivisible republic" means to rend even these bonds which bind the royal family together, and to part those who have sworn that nothing shall separate them but death! The republic--which had abolished the churches, overthrown the altars, driven the priesthood into exile--the republic cannot grant to the Capet family that only death shall separate them, for it had even made Death its servant, and must accept daily victims from him, offered on the Place de Liberte, in the centre of which stood the guillotine, the only altar tolerated there.

In the middle of October the republic sent its emissaries to the Temple, to tear the king from the arms of his wife and his children. In spite of their pleadings and cries, he was taken to another part of the Temple--to the great tower, which from this time was to serve as his lodgings. And in order that the queen might be spared no pang, the dauphin was compelled to go with his father and be separated from his mother.

This broke the pride, the royal pride of Marie Antoinette. She wrung her hands, she wept, she cried, she implored with such moving, melting tones, not to be separated from her son and husband, that even the heart of Simon the cobbler was touched.

"I really believe that these cursed women make me blubber!" cried