BOOK THIRTEENTH SOLITUDE OF LOUIS THE SEVENTEENTH. 30TH NIVÔSE-9TH THERMIDOR, 2ND YEAR (19TH Simon has no successor-Louis XVII.'s door is sealed and grated-Absolute isolation-Ennui and fear-Hébert and his partisans guillotinedDanton-Chaumette-Trial and execution of Madame ElizabethThe Reign of Terror-Catherine Théot-The municipals: nocturnal visits-Inexpressible sufferings of the young King-Steps taken by M. le Monnier-Appearance of France on the 9th Thermidor. WE have seen the sufferings to which Louis XVII. was subjected under the authority of Simon; we have seen with what firmness and resignation he bore them, until he bent, so to speak, beneath the weight of human woe-until the destruction of his physical powers had resulted in the overthrow of his mind in this frightful struggle, we have often seen the assassin conquered by the victim. Yet this excess of misery is only the beginning; all that this noble and unfortunate child has endured already is as nothing compared with what will come on him hereafter. He has, as yet, had only men to contend with, but he is now to struggle against abandonment and silence, against the weariness of solitude and the phantoms of fear. The committees decided that Simon should not have any successor. He was a person so difficult to replace! Chaumette and Hébert, who had the direction of everything concerning Solitary confinement. the Temple, agreed to this resolution, by which no intermediate power was appointed between the Temple tower and the municipal authority. They declared that they would seek in the material strength of inanimate objects the safety denied them by the absence of a permanent keeper; and the next morning (1st Pluviôse, 2nd year, 20th January, 1794), they restricted the prisoner's habitation to a single room; the child was sent into the back chamber, which had been Cléry's, and subsequently that of Simon's wife, during her illness. The door of communication between the ante-room and this room* was cut down, so as to leave it breast high, fastened with nails and screws, and grated from top to bottom with bars of iron. Half-way up was placed a shelf, on which the bars opened, forming a sort of wicket, closed by other movable bars, and fastened with an enormous padlock. By this wicket his coarse food was passed in to little Capet, and it was on this ledge that he had to put whatever he wanted to send away. The system of solitary confinement, of which the strongest natures now complain, was, as is seen, invented by that revolutionary genius which exhausted every source of suffering, and it was invented to be employed against a child. Although small, his apartment was yet large for a tomb. What had he to complain of? He had a room to walk in, a bed to lie upon; he had bread, and water, and linen, and clothes! But he had neither fire nor candle. His room was warmed only by a stove-pipe, the stove being placed in the outer room; it was lighted only by the gleam of a lamp suspended opposite the grating; through the bars of which also it was that the stove-pipe passed. All these arrangements were made on the 1st Pluviôse, and were completed that same evening by the light of lanterns; and, whether by an atrociously cruel calculation, or a fatal coincidence, the royal orphan took possession of his new prison on * See Plan, Vol I., page 264. Solitary confinement. the anniversary of the day on which his father ascended the scaffold (21st January, 1793). But there was neither date nor anniversary for him; year, month, and week,—all were confused together in his mind; for time, like a lake whose waters lie sleeping and still, had ceased to flow with him. His days were only marked by suffering; one was not distinguished from another, for he suffered every day. Still he had not contemplated with terror either the alteration made in his domicile, or the solitude in which he was confined. Since the time that his ill-fortune, by separating him from his mother, had for ever closed the careless period of his childhood, the Prince had not known a single moment's peace. Alas! perhaps he thought himself now safe from men. He felt free at last in his prison, like a young deer escaped from the hunter's dogs into the hollow of a valley. Perhaps he thought his solitude was only a transition to a happier state —how can we tell?—an improvement due to an influence which might afterwards restore him to his mother and to liberty. Hope comes so quickly to those who have not had a long experience of life, and who, thanks to their age, are yet young in misfortune! We are now entering upon a period of suffering which will be difficult for us to describe; of dull, gloomy, monotonous misery, without that pompous show which so often surrounds the misfortunes of kings. Who shall ever tell the sufferings borne in secret for more than six months in this dungeon? Who shall ever tell the inward struggles of that young mind, and the unseen anguish that tore the heart which Heaven had framed so full of courage and mildness? Yes, for upwards of six months (from the 20th January to the 27th July, 1794), the fresh air of Heaven never penetrated into this chamber: and the light was dim that entered through the grating and shutters, the thickness and solidity of which were the objects of constant watchfulness on Solitary confinement. the part of the council.* The victim did not even see the parsimonious hand that passed his meagre food through a sort of turning wheel made in the grated door, nor the careless hand that sometimes left him without a fire in very cold weather, and sometimes, by plying it with too much fuel made his prison a furnace. He heard no sound but that of bolts. Only, as the day closed in, a stern voice would call to him to go to bed, because they would not give him any light. He was obliged to sweep his room himself, if he wished to keep it at all clean; but, unfortunately, his strength, weakened as he was by ill-usage, bad food, and want of exercise, would not long allow of his fulfilling this employment. Already sufficiently advanced to interrogate his own sensations, sufficiently intelligent to understand his position, we may judge of the sufferings of this poor little being, struggling thus in the obscurity of his prison with monsters, whose powers and whose numbers he was alike unable to guess! For every evening, as it seemed to him, it was a new voice which *Commune of Paris. Extract from the deliberations of the Temple council. Paris, 2nd Nivôse, 2nd year of the Republic (22nd December, 1793). "On this day, 2nd Nivôse, at three o'clock in the afternoon, there presented themselves at the council, citizens Lépine, Lelièvre, and Langlois, on duty yesterday at the Temple, who acquainted us with a conference they had held this morning with the citizen mayor, regarding the delay in the carrying out the decree of the council-general about the shutters to be put up in Simon's room, on the second floor, from which it appears that every obstacle is removed, and the Temple council on duty to-day, in conjunction with that on duty yesterday, have decreed, that citizen Coru, steward to the Temple, be immediately directed to send for a workman, in order to carry out the decree of the council-general, and that a copy of the minutes be given to citizen Coru. "TONNELLIER, LEVASSEUR, LECHENARD." This affair of the shutters had formerly occupied the council-general and the Temple council, and at the dates of the 14th and 15th December, 1793, we find two decrees "to restore the shutters against the windows of the rooms occupied by Simon and little Capet, and make them such as they were before a part was taken away." The young King's misery. ordered him to go to bed. He was as if in the midst of some frightful dream; his spirit floated in a void, surrounded by anxieties and fears. Solitude weighed upon his heart like a weight of lead. Deprived of all work, all play, of every object that might occupy his time, every word that might arouse his ear, how very long were his days! Still, while day lasted, he had a feeble light to cheer his deserted room. To see!-it is to live, to think, to possess, to defend one's-self! But at night! -at night!-when that appearance of life which is supported by a gleam of light ceases, when darkness and silence come to separate man from the world without, and shut him in with himself! Oh! it was then, above all, in those long hours which preceded sleep, that bitter reflection came upon him, and the painful fever of thought; and then fear!-fear as constant as a shadow, as dark as the night!-fear, with its vague threatenings and intangible phantasmagoria !-fear, abounding in excitement and sudden starts and perils! Many a fancy then passed through his mind, such as perhaps his most inveterate foe would scarce believe. Many days, many nights, passed by: not a word, not a murmur was heard from the prison. Still he did not understand why they wished him ill; he did not understand why they injured him; he felt, deep within his heart, his desertion, his degradation, and his misery, and he did not seek to explain them to himself: he accepted his sorrows without irritation against that mysterious association which had made him an orphan. The trap-door opened every day, but he never asked for mercy or pity. He doubtless thought sometimes of his father, but without an idea of avenging his death; he thought of his Maker, but asked from Him nothing but his aid. In his young breast was nought but love and mercy, and none but God heard his sighs! Meanwhile Robespierre and Danton, perceiving that Hébert and his partizans were endeavouring to exalt the authority of the Commune of Paris above that of the Convention, united, |