Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

Different as this kind of life was from that at Versailles, in the midst of the most splendid court in the universe, it was, nevertheless, bearable, and it may even be said to have been delightful, compared with that which succeeded it, when, in the first place, the king was separated from his family, when the queen was subsequently parted from her son, and when, lastly, that unfortunate son was given up to the horrible management of the infamous Simon, a shoemaker, who was then a member of the Common Council at Paris.*

Notwithstanding his extreme youth, the dauphin felt deeply the horrors of his captivity, and he more than once shewed by hasty expressions how much he felt. One of the commissioners of the odious Common Council, named Mercerant, who had been a mason, and was of a churlish nature and a splenetic temper, imagining that the dauphin did not pay him as much respect as he ought, took offence, and said, in a brutal tone, "Dost thou not know, Capet, that liberty has made us all free, and that we are all equal "As equal as you please," replied the young prince with a laugh," but as to free, that is not true.'

"

Towards the end of December 1793, the wife of his stern keeper fell sick, and M. Naudin, a surgeon belonging to the Hotel Dieu, was called in to prescribe for her. At the moment when he was quitting his patient, Simon, who was at table, wished to force the young prince to sing some infamous verses. The prince replied only by his tears. The monster got up, seized him by his hair, and said to him, with an infernal voice," Toad! if thou dost not sing, I will crush thee to death!" Witness of the violence, M. Naudin rushed upon the monster, pulled his victim from him, and exclaimed, "Villain, what do you mean to do?"

When M. Naudin returned the next day, he found the child by himself, who presented to him two pears, which had been given to him for his afternoon's meal,

* This wretch was comprised in the proscription which the Convention pronounced against the Common Council, on the ninth of Thermidor, and with his colleagues he suffered a punishment too mild for the crimes they had committed.

and said, while his eyes were full of tears," These are all that I have to offer you, and you will grieve me very much if you do not accept them!" M. Naudin took them, and kissed the hand by which they were given.

When he was torn, for the first time, from the arms of his mother, on the 3d of July, 1793, he never ceased weeping for two days and nights. He never ceased calling for her; and to whom did he address his plaints? to that miscreant Simon, that drunken creature, whom the Common Council had given him as a teacher. Every thing leads us to believe that the murderers of the father, dreading the vengeance of the son, had resolved upon his death; but that, not daring to bring him to trial, because he was too young, nor to poison him, because no one chose to take on himself the responsibility of such a crime, they accomplished their purpose, by undermining the principles of life, by the bad treatment of every kind which they made him endure.

Neither the tender age, the innocence, nor the beauty of the young prince had power to touch the heart of the inflexible jailor. His wife and he, rivals in wickedness, used the most infamous means to destroy the corporeal and mental powers of their prisoner. They strove to make him a sharer in their revolutionary opinions, their vile habits, and their sottish pleasures. The child heard nothing but obscene language, and saw nothing but disgusting objects. He was employed in the lowest occupations. His hair was cut off, a red cap was put upon his head, and he was dressed in the revolutionary fashion, and he was told, Well! Capet! thou art now become a jacobin as we are!" When he did not obey quickly enough the orders of his jailors, he was beaten without mercy. Simon obliged the prince to wait on him at table, and one day was near knocking out his eye with a blow from a plate. Another day, he threw a candlestick at his head.

[ocr errors]

These atrocities were borne by the young prince with the utmost resignation, and with continual tears. Simon having one day asked him what he would do if

he became king.—“ I would pardon you,” replied he.

As the barbarous treatment which we have described did not answer the purpose of the cowardly assassins with sufficient speed, they formed a plan to brutify him by a dietetic regimen which was quite worthy of their habits. They compelled him to drink wine, which at first he could not touch without extreme repugnance, and they finished by intoxicating him every day with strong liquors.

The death of Simon did not put an end to the torments of the prince, which proves that, notwithstanding his natural barbarism, Šimon only executed faithfully the orders of the Common Council and the Con

vention.

The prince was shut up alone in a chamber which had little light, and which, if he wished it to be at all clean, he was obliged himself to sweep. He slept on a wretched bed, which was never shaken, and he was surrounded by filth which no one ever removed. As his linen was never changed, he soon began to feel all the consequences of the most terrible want of cleanliness, which, joined to the worst kind of nourishment, and the total privation of exercise, could not fail to complete the ruin of his weak constitution.

that

All communication with any one beyond the walls of his prison was strictly interdicted. He did not even see the grudging hand which conveyed to him his coarse food, by means of a box turning on a pivot, which had been put into the wall between his room and that of his keepers. He heard no sound except of bolts and bars, no other voice than that of the barbarians, who, by a refinement of cruelty, woke him up in the night, calling out to him every hour, "Capet, art thou asleep?" What strength could resist such protracted sufferings? He sunk under them.

His strength now diminished every day, and the progress of his disorder became so rapid, that the municipality thought it necessary to make the Committee of general safety acquainted with his situation.

The Committee deputed three of its members, M.M. Armand de la Meuse, Matthieu, and Reverchon, to

verify the facts, ascertain the state of the prince's health, and make a report on the subject. This report did not become public till a long while after. The following is an extract from it.

"We arrived," say they, "at the gate under the bolts of which was confined the innocent son of the late king.

"We found the prince seated at a little square table, on which were scattered a great many playing cards; some were bent into the form of boxes, and others were built up as houses. He was engaged with these cards when we entered, and he did not leave off his play.

"He was dressed in a new sailor's dress of slate coloured cloth; his head was uncovered; his bed was a stump-bedstead without curtains, placed behind the door; the linen seemed to us to be fine and good.

"At the foot of this bed was another without bedding. The commissioners of the Common Council informed us it was that of a cobler, named Simon, whom the municipality, before the death of Robespierre, had placed in the prince's chamber, to attend and watch him. It is well known with what atrocious barbarity this wretch performed his functions.

"It is known how he sported with the slumbers of his prisoner; and that, without any regard for his tender years, for which sleep is so imperious a want, he broke his rest in the night by crying out to him, "Capet! Capet!" The prince replied," Here I am, citizen." "Come near, that I may see you," exclaimed the tiger. The lamb approached, and the wretch extended his victim on the earth with a kick, saying, "Go, and lye down again, thou young wolf!"

"This is already a matter of notoriety; but we have thought it proper to repeat it, because, by giving us the narrative on the spot, the commissioners made us doubly feel all the interest and the horror of it.".

TO BE RESUMED.

ANECDOTE AND WIT.

No. 37.-HOW TO EXCITE CHARITY.

A DISSENTER was preaching a sermon for the Li verpool infirmary, and, among other arguments to effect his purpose, he pleasantly observed, that " no man, such was the importance and excellence of the institution, could possibly be prevented from bestowing liberally, according to his ability, but by some distress of circumstances. Whosoever, therefore, (he added,) shrinks from his duty on this occasion, must inevitably be concluded to be in debt." The consequence was a pleutiful contribution.

Another dissenting minister, employed, in a similar case, an argument equally humourous and successful, "Methinks," said the arch divine, " methinks I hear some of you excuse yourselves by alleging the great sums you intend to bequeath to these charitable institutions at your death. Commendable indeed it is, to be charitable at any time. But, in the meanwhile, the poor must not starve in expectation of your liberality; and we, the friends and patrons of the poor, shall think ourselves in duty bound to offer up our most devout supplications to the Father of Mercies, that he will be pleased as soon as possible to take you to himself for their benefit." The audience were terrified into charity; and the effect was answerable to the most sanguine wishes of the preacher.

HINTS TO SCOLDS."

I HAVE heard of a lady of free speech, who found herself often provoked to employ her vituperative powers on her husband. His method was always to take up his fiddle and play her a tune, without opening his lips, while she was bursting with vexation. Her violence, augmented by his tranquillity, at length brought her to her death bed; but when near expiring, "I think," said she, "I could recover yet, if the fellow would but answer me:" this remedy, however, he was not at all inclined to administer.

« IndietroContinua »