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174 she might learn the course of the trial, or if that should be refused, that the children at least might be permitted to see his majesty. The newspapers were refused; but the children were allowed to see their father, on condition of being separated entirely from their mother. To this privation, however, the king was too generous to expose her.

The circumstances immediately preceding and attending the execution of the unhappy monarch are known to all:—we cannot deny ourselves the satisfaction of transcribing the tribute paid by his daughter to the greatness of his conduct during his rigorous captivity.—"During his confinement, he displayed the highest piety, greatness of mind, and goodness;—mildness, fortitude, and patience, in bearing the most infamous insults, the most horrid and malignant calumnies; Christian clemency, which forgave even his murderers; and the love of God, his family, and his people, of which he gave the most affecting proofs, even with his last breath, ad of which he went to receive the reward in the bosom of his Almighty and all-merciful Creator."

After the death of Louis, the persecutions of his family became every day more rigorous. A decree of the Commune, that the dauphin should be separated from his mother and the princesses, gave rise to a scene of affliction, which is described with the most touching simplicity.

"As soon as the young prince heard this sentence pronounced, he threw himself into the arms of his mother, and entreated, with violent cries, not to be taken from her. The unhappy queen was stricken to the earth by this cruel order. She would not part with her son; and she actually defended, against the efforts of the officers, the bed in which she had placed him. But these men would have him, and threatened to call up the guard and use violence. The queen exclaimed, that they had better kill her than tear her child from her. An hour was spent in resistance on her part, in threats and insults from the officers, in prayers and tears on the part of the two other princesses. At last they threatened even the life of the child, and the queen's maternal tenderness at length forced her to this sacrifice. Madame Elizabeth (the king's sister) and Madame Royale dressed the child, for his poor mother had no longer strength for any thing. Nevertheless, when he was dressed, she took him and delivered him into the hands of the officers, bathing him with her tears, foreseeing, possibly, that she was never to see him again."

The only pleasure the queen now enjoyed was, seeing her child through a chink as he passed from his room to the tower: at this chink she used to watch for hours together. The barbarity with which the dauphin was treated has no parallel. He was committed to a man of the name of Simon, a shoemaker by trade, then one of the municipal officers. To this inhuman wretch, the boy's crying at being separated from his family, appeared an unpardonable crime—and he soon impressed him with such terror that he did not dare to weep. Simon, to insult the miseries of the unhappy sufferers through the voice of this beloved child, made him every day sing at the windows the Carmagnole, and other revolutionary songs; and taught him the most horrid oaths and imprecations against God, his own family, and the aristocrats. " The queen fortunately was ignorant of these horrors. She was gone before the child had learned his infamous lesson. It was an infliction which the mercy of Heaven was pleased to spare her." While this unfortunate boy remained under the care of Simon, his bed had not been stirred for six months, and was alive with bugs, and vermin still more disgusting. His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had no change of shirt or stockings! every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate about him, and in his room. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened, and the infectious smell of this horrid room was dreadful. He never asked for any thing, so great was his dread of Simon and his other keepers. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body, and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into the most frightful atrophy.

But we must forbear to indulge farther in these melancholy details, earnestly recommending to our readers the perusal of the journal itself. The queen and Madame Elizabeth, a