Marie-Thérèse de France (French Edition)

At that moment the murderers tried to seize him again under the very eyes of the deputies. My mother cried out to Barnave to save him, which he succeeded in doing through the ascendency he had over the people, and the poor priest escaped with only a wound. The deputies, having approached the carriage, told my father that by order of the National Assembly they were charged to bring him back to Paris, blaming him at the same time for wishing to leave France.

But my aunt and I absolutely refused to leave the carriage. Barnave sat between my aunt, who placed me before her, and Mme. These deputies talked much and disclosed openly their manner of thinking; to which my mother and my aunt replied rather energetically. Maubourg was [a man of another species, but] an insignificant being who had let himself be drawn into the Revolution without knowing why.

We reached Dormans in the evening, and slept at a little inn. The deputies were lodged side by side with us. Our windows looked on the street, which all night long was filled with the populace shouting, and wanting us to go on in the middle of the night; but the deputies no doubt wanted to rest themselves, and so we stayed.

My brother was ill all night and almost had delirium, so shocked was he by the dreadful things he had seen a on the preceding day. The next day, June 24th, nothing happened of importance, except impertinent speeches from the deputies, yells and insults from the people, and the excessive heat which overcame us because we were, as I have said, eight persons in a carriage holding only four. We were told that our three Gardes du Corps must be left behind, because there was no safety for them in Paris. They remained, nevertheless, with us and nothing happened to them.

We slept at Meaux in the bishop's house, full of priests who had taken the oath, but otherwise civil enough; the bishop himself served us. They informed us that we must start the next day at five in the morning so as to reach Paris in good season. We started at six, and though it is only ten leagues from Meaux to Paris, we did not reach Bondy, the last post, till midday nor the Tuileries till half-past seven at night. At Bondy the populace showed its desire to massacre our three Gardes du Corps , and my father did all be could to save them, in which, it must be owned, the deputies eagerly seconded him.

The crowd we met along the road was innumerable, so that we could scarcely advance. The insults with which the people loaded us were our only food throughout the day. In the faubourgs of Paris the crowd was even greater, and among all those persons we saw but one woman fairly well-dressed who showed by her tears the interest she took in us. On the Place Louis XV.

We were made to drive through the garden of the Tuileries, surrounded by weapons of all sorts, and muskets which almost touched us. It was they also who saved the Gardes du Corps. On arriving at the Tuileries and getting out of the carriage, we were almost carried off our feet by the enormous crowd that filled the staircase.

My father went up first, with my mother and my brother. As for me, I was to go with my aunt, and one of the deputies took me in his arms to carry me up. In vain did I cry for my aunt; the noise was so dreadful she could not hear me. At last we were all reunited in the king's room, where were nearly all the deputies of the National Assembly, who, however, seemed very civil and did not stay long. My father entered the inner rooms with his family, and seeing them all in safety, I left him and went to my own apartments, being quite worn out with fatigue and inanition.

I did not know until the next morning what took place that evening. Guards were placed over the whole family, with orders not to let them out of sight, and to stay night and day in their chambers. My father had them in his room at night, but in the daytime they were stationed in the next room. My mother would not allow them to be in the room where she slept with a waiting-woman, but they stayed in the adjoining room with the doors open.

My brother had them also, night and day; but my aunt and I had none. My father and mother could not leave their rooms, not even to go to church, and mass was said in their apartments. No one could enter the Tuileries unless by cards of permission, which M. After that, we had several months of respite and apparent tranquillity, but the king found himself in a constant struggle with the Assembly, which ulcerated all minds more and more, daily.

Assault on the Tuileries by the Populace June 20, Under the circumstances of that time the people took a mania to place in all the public squares and gardens what were called "liberty trees;" these were little trees or tall poles, at the top of which they put the bonnet rouge with tricolour ribbons—that is to say, red, blue, and white. They expressed to my father a wish to plant one in the garden of the Tuileries, and he acquiesced. From all these signs my parents could augur nothing good and expect nothing but fresh insults heaped upon them.

Previous to this, the Assembly had exacted that the king should sign their decree that all priests who had not taken the oath were to be sent out of France. My father would not acquiesce in that decree, and had put his veto upon it. This veto was a derisory right which the Assembly allowed the king to exercise when he would not acquiesce in their propositions. On the 20th of June, about eleven o'clock in the morning, nearly all the inhabitants of the faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, where the populace chiefly lived, marched in a body to the National Assembly, to go from there to the garden and plant the liberty-tree.

But as they were all armed, which gave reason to suspect bad intentions, my father ordered the gates of the Tuileries to be closed. The Assembly showed great dissatisfaction, and sent a deputation of four municipals to induce the king to order the gates to be opened. An hour later this armed procession began to defile before our windows, and no idea can be formed of the insults they said to us. Among others, they carried a banner on which were these words: This lasted until three o'clock, when the garden was at last freed. During this time our family were in the rooms on the courtyard side, absolutely alone and observing all that went on; the gentlemen of the suite and the ladies dined on the other side.

It was a horrible sight to see, and impossible to describe—that of these people, with fury in their faces, armed with pikes and sabres, and pell-mell with them women half unclothed, resembling Furies. Two of the ushers wishing to run the bolts of my father's door, he prevented it and sprang himself into the next room to meet the rioters. My aunt followed him hastily, and hardly had she passed when the door was locked. My mother and I ran after her in vain; we could not pass, and at that moment several persons came to us, and finally, the guard.

My mother cried out: My mother and I, being determined to follow my brother, did all we could against the persons who prevented us from passing; prayers, efforts, all were useless, and we had to remain in our room in mortal anxiety. My mother kept her courage, but it almost abandoned her when, at last, entering my brother's room she could not find him. My mother then sent for him and had him brought back to his room.

There we awaited, in the silence of profound anxiety, for news of what had happened to my father. My father was therefore almost alone when the door was forced in by one sapeur , axe in hand raised to strike him, but [here] by his coolness and imperturbable courage my father so awed the assassin that the weapon fell from his hand,—an event almost incomprehensible. It is said that some one cried out: The blow having thus failed, the other accomplices, seeing that their leader had let himself be cowed, dared not execute their evil designs.

Of all this mass of the populace, there were certainly very few who knew precisely what they were expected to do. To each had been given twenty sous and a musket; they were sent in drunk with orders to insult us in every imaginable way. Their leader, Santerre, had brought them as far as the courtyard, and there he awaited the success of his enterprise. It was on this horrible day that my father and my aunt each made a memorable speech.

At the moment of the greatest danger a soldier came up to the king and said to him, "Sire, fear nothing. This dreadful situation lasted from half-past three in the afternoon till eight at night. In haranguing the people he had the impudence to say: Meantime my mother, who, as I said, could not rejoin the king, and was in her apartment with my brother and me, was a long time without hearing any news.

We were scarcely there before the rioters entered the apartment we had just left. The room in which we now were had three doors: They were all three locked, but the first two were attacked, one by the wretches who were pursuing us, the other by men who came up the little staircase, where we heard their shouts and the blows of their axes. In this close danger my mother was perfectly calm; she placed my brother behind every one and near the door of the Council Chamber, which was still safe, then she placed herself at the head of us all.

Soon we heard some one at the door of the Council Chamber begging to enter. It was one of my brother's servants, pale as death, who said only these few words: In this crisis my mother hastily ordered the third door opened and passed into the Council Chamber, where there were, already, a number of the National Guard and a crowd of wretches. My mother said to the soldiers that she came to take refuge with her son among them.

The soldiers instantly surrounded us; a large table standing in the middle of the Chamber, served my mother to lean upon, my brother was seated on it, and the brigands defiled past it to look at us. We were separated from my father by only two rooms, and yet it was impossible to join him, so great was the crowd. We were therefore obliged to stay there and listen to all the insults that these wretches said to us as they passed. It was, as I have said, about eight o'clock when this dreadful procession of rioters ceased to pass and we were able to rejoin my father and aunt.

No one can imagine our feelings at that reunion; they were such that even the deputies from the Assembly were touched. My brother was overcome with fatigue and they put him to bed. We stayed together for a time, the room being full of deputies. An hour later they went away, and about eleven o'clock, after having passed a most terrible day, we separated to get some rest. My father ordered him to be silent; but as he still tried to protest his attachment, my father said: The Days from the 10th to the 13th of August, The troops who remained faithful to my father were therefore hastily collected, among them the Swiss Guard; and a great number of the nobles who were [still] in Paris arrived [in haste].

Imagine the situation of my unhappy parents during that horrible night; they remained together [expecting only carnage and death], and my mother had ordered my brother and me to go to bed. The first shot fired killed M. Clermont-Tonnerre, a member of the First Assembly. For a part of the night the tumult went on outside the Tuileries, where fresh reinforcements of the National Guard were successively arriving; unfortunately, [far] too many came, for most of them were already seduced and treacherously inclined.

At six in the morning it was suggested to my father to visit all the posts and encourage the troops to defend him; but only a few cries of Vive le Roi! Towards seven in the morning Roederer, head of the department, arrived. He asked to speak alone with the king; there, he threw himself at his feet and conjured him to save himself; he represented to him that furious brigands were arriving in masses, that he had too few persons to defend him, that he had no course left but to go, he and his family, and take refuge in the National Assembly.

My father rejected the idea for a long time, but Roederer insisting, and the peril becoming urgent and inevitable, he at last resolved to go to the Assembly with his family, Mme. On the way we were told that the Assembly would not receive my father. The terrace of the Feuillants, along which we had to pass, was full of wretches, who assailed us with insults; one of them cried out: At last we entered the passage to the Assembly.

We were thus kept in a narrow corridor, so dark that we could see nothing, and hear nothing but the shouts of the furious mob. My father, my mother, and my brother were in front with Mme. I was held by a man whom I did not know. I have never thought myself so near death, not doubting that the decision was made to murder us all. In the darkness I could not see my parents, and I feared everything for them. We were left to this mortal agony more than half an hour. At last we were allowed to enter the hall of the Assembly, and my father on entering said [in a loud voice] that he came to take refuge with his family in the bosom of the Assembly, to prevent the French nation from committing a great crime.

We were placed at the bar, and they then discussed whether it was proper that my father should be present at their deliberations. They said, as to that, that it was impossible to let him stay at the bar without infringing on the inviolability of the sovereign people; and they declaimed speeches thereon which were full of horrors. After this they took us into the box of a journalist.

Marie Therese Of France: Exile

We had hardly entered this species of cage when we heard cannon, musket-shots, and the cries of those who were murdering in the Tuileries; but we were ignorant at the time of what was happening. We heard later how the massacre began. Nothing more was needed to push their fury to the highest point; those who were outside hearing the Swiss fire first, and taking them for the aggressors, spread the rumour that my father had ordered them to fire on the people. Among the victims were MM. All the old officers of the Guard called "constitutional," the two battalions of the Filles-St.

What could they do against a multitude maddened with drink and blood and fury? Nevertheless, in the midst of these abominations some traits of humanity were shown; among these monsters were some who saved several persons, taking them by the arm and making them pass for their friends or relatives. The carnage lasted all that day on one side or the other; the number of brigands who perished was considerable, for those wretches killed each other in their blind fury. Meantime our terrors increased as these dreadful noises went on; but it was even worse when we heard the same sort of cries close to the Assembly.

The members themselves were frightened, and in their fear they tore out the iron railing of the box where we were and forced my father into the midst of them; but this tumult was soon appeased. It was occasioned by the approach of a number of the Swiss Guard who had escaped from the Tuileries and were trying to come to the support of the king; they had almost forced the door of the Assembly when an officer said to them: The king is in the midst of assassins; they will murder him if you advance.

A forged order from the king was sent to summon the Swiss Guard from the barracks at Courbevoie; on their arrival in Paris they met the same fate. Still kept on the box at the Assembly, we witnessed the horrors of all kinds which there took place. Sometimes they assailed my father and all his family with [the basest and most atrocious] insults, triumphing over him with cruel joy; sometimes they brought in gentlemen dying of their wounds; sometimes they brought my father's own servants, who, with the utmost impudence, gave false testimony against him; while others boasted of what they had done.

At last, to complete the revolting scene, they brought in the Host and flung the sacred wafers on the ground. It was in the midst of these abominations that our entire day, from eight in the morning until midnight, passed [as one may say] through all gradations of whatever was most terrible, most awful. The session ended by [a decree full of insults to my father, declaring the king suspended from his functions and ordering the convocation of a National Convention.

They next wished to take up the fate of my brother; they proposed to appoint his governor, and even to make him king; but the latter motion was rejected, and that of giving him a governor was adjourned until the Convention should declare whether the Nation desired to still have a king].

The next day, several persons belonging to my father's service came to us. We were forced to return again to the Assembly and spend the whole day there while they discussed what should be done with the king, and where he should be kept. That day and the next were passed like the preceding day; we were forced to listen in the hall of the Assembly to the prowess of those who had distinguished themselves by their barbarities. At night we returned to our rooms, [where we were not allowed to enjoy in peace the hours consecrated to rest], a deputy of the Assembly coming an hour after midnight to search and see if we had men hidden there; none were found, for my father had been obliged to send away those who had come to him.

On the 12th it was determined that we should be transferred to the Temple on the following day. On the 13th we did not go to the Assembly. We drove through the streets leading to the Temple in great peril and loaded with insults; our conductors themselves feared the people so much that they would not let the carriage stop for a moment; and yet it took two hours before we could reach the Temple through that immense throng.

We did not observe on our way any feeling souls touched by our condition, such terror was now inspired in those who still thought rightly. And yet, in the midst of so many sights which might well break down the strongest soul, my father and my mother preserved the tranquillity and courage that a good conscience can alone inspire. Manuel had received on the way a decree of the Commune designating the Tower as our common prison. At eleven, my brother dying with sleep, Mme.

My father was surrounded by the municipal guards, drunk and insolent, who sat down beside him, and talked in a loud voice without the slightest regard to him. He was ashamed himself, to find this lodging bare of everything, and such that my aunt was reduced to sleep in the kitchen for several nights. The persons who were shut up with us in this fatal place were the Princesse de Lamballe, Mme.

Cimbris, Thibaut, Navarre, and Bazire, waiting-women to my brother, my mother, my aunt, and myself. My father was lodged above on the third floor of the building adjacent to the main body of the Tower; having a municipal guard in his room. My aunt occupied a kitchen with Mlle. Navarre; my mother lodged below in a salon, with me and afterwards Mme. Cimbris; this was a billiard-room.

Thibaut and Bazire slept below. The next day my father came to breakfast at nine o'clock in my mother's room, and afterwards we all went together to look over the Tower, because they wanted to make bedchambers of the great rooms. We returned to dine on the first floor in a room adjoining the library.

After dinner, Manuel and Santerre commander of the National Guard, came to the Tower, and my father went to walk with them in the garden. My father opposed this vehemently and so did the municipal guards, which annoyed those who had brought the order. We were each asked privately if we did not wish for others; on which, having all responded no, things remained as they were.

From this time we were busy in regulating our hours. We passed the whole day together; my father taught my brother geography and history; my mother made him learn and recite verses; my aunt taught him arithmetic. Fortunately there was a Library adjoining our apartments [that of the guard of the Archives of Malta], where my father found an agreeable diversion; my mother, my aunt, and I often did worsted-work. My father asked for a man and woman to do the rough work, and a few days later they sent a man named Tison and his wife.

Media in category "Marie Thérèse Charlotte of France, Madame Royale"

The guards became daily more uncivil and insolent, and they never left us one instant alone, either when we were together or separate. At last, during the night of the 19th and 20th of August, they brought and read in all our rooms a decree of the Commune removing from the Tower all persons who were not of the royal family. My mother tried to oppose it by urging that she was her relative, but in vain; they replied that they had orders to take her away and question her. Obliged to submit, we all rose, with death in our hearts, to bid these ladies farewell [an eternal farewell to the Princesse de Lamballe, and it seemed as if we had a presentiment of her horrible fate.

Unable to go to sleep again, even my brother who was awakened by the noise, we passed the night together; my father, though awakened, remained in his room with a municipal. The men who took away the ladies assured us they would return after their examination, but we learned the next day that they had been taken to the prison of La Force.

My mother, left thus alone, took charge of my brother, who slept in her room; I went to occupy the billiard-room with my aunt, and the municipal kept himself during the day in the queen's room and at night with the sentinel in the little room between us. My father remained above, where he slept; we went up to breakfast with him while they cleaned my mother's chamber, after which my father came down and spent the entire day with us. The 24th, towards one in the morning, they came to search my father's room under pretence of looking for arms, and they took away his sword.

We then heard that M. The latter was the horrible man who on the 20th of June had forced my father's door and tried to kill him. This monster roamed around us continually with dreadful glances; he never ceased torturing my father in every possible way; sometimes he sang the Carmagnole, and other such horrors; at other times he puffed the smoke of his pipe into my father's face as he passed, knowing that he disliked the smell of it; at night when we went to supper, as we were obliged to pass through his room, he was always in his bed, and sometimes he would be there at our dinner hour, pretending to sleep; in short there was no kind of insult and insolence he did not invent to torment us.

Even at the windows on the street which looked into the garden, people came expressly to insult us. On the 2d of September, as we were walking there towards four in the afternoon, not knowing what was going on outside, a woman stood at one of those windows who loaded my father with insults and dared to assail him with stones which fell beside him; another of those windows offered us at the same moment a very touching contrast.

How precious to the unfortunate is a mark of interest! We had hardly rejoiced at the news when a new municipal arrived, named Matthieu [a former capuchin monk]. Inflamed with anger he came to my father and told him to follow him, which we all did, fearing that they meant to separate us. Going upstairs we met M. We heard that in the end he was set at liberty, but he never returned to the Temple. The municipals all condemned the violent conduct of Matthieu, but they did not do better. They told my father they were certain the King of Prussia was on the march and killing all Frenchmen by an order signed by Louis.

There were no calumnies they did not invent, even the most ridiculous and the most incredible. My mother, who could not sleep. September 3d at eight in the morning, Manuel came to see my father, and assured him that Mme. At three in the afternoon we heard dreadful outcries; my father left the dinner-table and played backgammon with my mother, to control his countenance and be able to say a few words to her without being heard. The municipal guard in the room behaved well; he closed the door and window, also the curtains, so that they might see nothing.

The workmen at the Temple and the jailer Rocher joined the murderers, which increased the noise. Several officers of the National Guard and some municipals arrived; the first desired that my father should show himself at the window. The municipals fortunately opposed this; but my father, having asked what was happening, a young officer replied: The municipals scolded the officer, but my father, with his usual kindness, excused him, saying it was not the officer's fault, but his own for having questioned him.

The noise lasted till five o'clock. We learned that the people had tried to force the gates; that the municipals had prevented it by tying across the door a tricolour scarf; and that finally they had allowed six of the murderers to enter and walk round our prison with the head of Mme. When this deputation entered, Rocher uttered shouts of joy on seeing the head of Mme. The municipal guard who had sacrificed his scarf at the door made my father pay for it.

We did not suppose that the massacre was still going on; it was not until some time later that we learned it had lasted three days. It is impossible to give all the scenes that took place, as much on the part of the municipals as on that of the National Guard; everything alarmed them, so guilty did they feel themselves. Once, during supper, there was a cry to arms; it was thought that the foreigners were arriving; the horrible Rocher took a sabre and said to my father, "If they come I will kill you.

• Marie Thérèse Charlotte (1778–1851).
• How Can We Attain… ETERNAL LIFE: With Our LORD GOD In Heaven? By Way Of True Defender of the Faith.
• Marie Therese Of France: Prisoner | History And Other Thoughts?
• Narrative of Marie-Thérèse de France, Duchesse d'Angoulême..
• Category:Marie Thérèse Charlotte of France, Madame Royale - Wikimedia Commons.

Their severity increased daily. Nevertheless, we found two municipals who softened the misery of my parents by showing them kind feeling and giving them hope. I fear they are dead. There was also a sentinel who had a conversation with my aunt through the keyhole. That unfortunate man wept all the time he was near us in the Temple. I know not what became of him; may heaven have rewarded his attachment to his king. When I took my lessons and my mother prepared extracts for me, a municipal was always there, looking over my shoulder, believing that there must be conspiracy.

The newspapers were not allowed us for fear we should know the foreign news; but one day they brought a copy to my father telling him he would find something interesting in it. One evening a municipal, on arriving, uttered many threats and insults, and repeated what we had already heard, that we should all perish if the enemy approached Paris; he added that my brother alone caused him pity, but, being the son of a tyrant, he must die. Such were the scenes that my family had to bear daily.

The Republic was established September 22, they told us joyfully; they also told us of the departure of the foreign army; we could not believe it, but it was true. At the beginning of October, they took away from us pens, paper, ink and pencils; they searched everywhere, and even harshly. This did not prevent my mother and me from hiding our pencils, which we kept; my father and aunt gave up theirs. The evening of the same day, as my father was finishing supper, they told him to wait; that he was going into another lodging in the Great Tower, and would in future be separated from us.

At this dreadful news my mother lost her usual courage and firmness. We parted from him with many tears, still hoping, however, to see him again. The next day they brought our breakfast separately from his; my mother would eat nothing. The municipals, frightened and troubled by her gloomy grief, allowed us to see my father, but only at meals, forbidding us to speak in low tones or in foreign languages, but "aloud and in good French. At night, my brother being in bed, either my mother or my aunt stayed with him, while the other went with me to sup with my father. We went to walk together daily at midday.

Manuel came to see my father and took away from him harshly his cordon rouge order of Saint-Louis , and assured him that none of those who had been at the Temple, excepting Mme. A municipal, coming in one evening, woke my brother roughly to see if he was there; this was the only moment of anger which I saw my mother show. I do not know what object that man had in giving us this information; we never saw him again.

The windows were secured by iron bars and shutters; the chimneys smoked much. Here is how the days of my parents were passed. My father rose at seven o'clock and prayed to God till eight. Then he dressed, and so did my brother, till nine, when they came to breakfast with my mother.

After breakfast, my father gave my brother lessons until eleven o'clock; the latter played till midday, when we all went to walk together, no matter what the weather was, because the guard, which was changed at that hour, wished to see us and be certain of our presence in the Tower; the walk lasted till two o'clock, when we dined. After dinner my father and mother played backgammon or piquet, or, to speak more correctly, pretended to play so as to be able to say a few words to each other.

At six my brother went down. My father made him study and play till supper-time. At nine o'clock, after that meal, my mother undressed him quickly and put him to bed. We went up then to our room, but the king did not go to bed till eleven o'clock. My mother did a great deal of tapestry-work, and made me study and often read aloud. My aunt prayed to God; she read many books of piety; often the queen begged her to read them aloud. The newspapers were now returned to us in order that we might see the departure of the foreigners and read the horrors about the king of which they were full.

A municipal said to us one day: The Convention came for the first time to see the king. The members who composed the deputation asked him if he had any complaints to make; he said no, he was satisfied, so long as he was with his family. They came back, after dinner, and asked the same questions. The next day Drouet came back alone and asked the queen if she had any complaints to make. My mother made him no answer. My father asked that he should return; the municipals assured him that he would not return; nevertheless he was back at midnight.

He asked the king's pardon for his past conduct, which my father's manner, the exhortations of my aunt, and the sufferings of my relations made him change; after that he was very faithful. My father fell ill with a heavy cold; they granted him a doctor and his apothecary. The Commune was uneasy; it had bulletins every day of his health, which was soon reestablished.

The whole family were ill of this cold; but my father was more ill than the rest. The Commune changed on the 2d of December. The new municipals came to inspect my father and his family at ten o'clock at night. The search was made for the sharp instruments, and my mother and I gave up our scissors. December 11th we were made very anxious by the beating of drums and the arrival of a guard at the Temple.

My father came with my brother to breakfast. At eleven o'clock Chambon and Chaumette, one the mayor, the other the public prosecutor of the Commune of Paris, and Colombeau their clerk, went to my father's apartment. There they informed him of a decree of the Convention which ordered him to be brought to its bar to be interrogated.

My father observing that Colombeau bowed to many persons, asked him if they were all his friends; to which he answered: The king returned at six o'clock to the Tower of the Temple. We had been in a state of anxiety which it is impossible to express. My mother made every effort with the municipals who guarded her to learn what was happening; it was the first time that she deigned to question them. These men would tell her nothing, and it was only after my father's return that we heard the facts.

As soon as he had returned she asked urgently to see him; she even sent to Chambon to ask it, but received no reply. My brother spent the night in her room; he had no bed, she gave him hers and remained up all night in a gloom so great that we did not like to leave her, but she forced us to go to bed, my aunt and me. The next day she again asked to see my father and to read the journals to learn about his trial; she insisted that at least, if she might not see my father, permission should be granted to my brother and me.

This request was taken to the Council general; the newspapers were refused; they permitted my brother and me to see my father, but only on condition that we should be absolutely separated from my mother. They then brought my brother's bed into my mother's room. The Convention came to see my father; he asked for counsel, ink, paper, and razors with which to shave; all of which were granted to him.

He no longer went into the garden, neither did we; he heard no news of us, nor we of him, unless through the municipals, and then with difficulty. I had trouble in my foot, and my father, hearing of it, grieved about it with his customary kindness, and inquired carefully about my condition. My family found in this Commune a few charitable men, who, by their kind feeling, soothed our torture; they assured my mother that my father would not be put to death, that his case would be sent to the primary assemblies, which would certainly save him.

On the 26th of December, Saint-Stephen's day, my father made his will, because he expected to be murdered that day on his way to the bar of the Convention. He went there, nevertheless, with his usual calmness, and left to M. He went at eleven and returned at three o'clock. On the 18th of January, , the day on which the verdict was given, the municipals entered the king's room at eleven o'clock, saying they had orders not to let him out of sight.

He asked if his fate were decided; they answered no. The next morning M. I would rather die. I beg you to order them from me to make no movement to save me; the king does not die in France. Sunday, January 20, Garat, minister of justice, came to notify him that his sentence of death would be executed on the morrow; my father listened with courage and religion. He asked a respite of three days, to know what would become of his family, and to obtain a Catholic confessor.

The respite was refused. Garat assured my father that there was no charge against his family and they would all be sent out of the country. The king dined as usual, which surprised the municipals, who expected that he would wish to kill himself. We learned the sentence pronounced upon my father on that Sunday, the 20th, from the news criers, who came to shout it under our windows. At seven in the evening, a decree of the Convention arrived, permitting us to go to my father; we hurried there and found him much changed. He wept for sorrow over us, and not from fear of death; he related his trial to my mother, excusing the wretches who caused his death; he told her that it was proposed to appeal to the primary assemblies, but he opposed it, because that measure would bring trouble into the State.

My mother ardently desired that we should pass the night with him; he refused, making her feel that he had need of tranquillity. She begged him at least to let us come the next morning; he granted that to her; but as soon as we were gone he told the guard not to let us come again, because our presence pained him too much.

He remained after that with his confessor, went to bed at midnight, and slept till five o'clock, when he was wakened by the drums. He started about nine o'clock; as he went down the stairway he gave his will to a municipal; he also gave him a sum of money which M.

He next met a jailer, whom he had reproved rather sharply the evening before, and said to him: Arriving at the scaffold, he wished to speak to the people, but Santerre prevented it by making the drums beat; the few words he was able to say were heard by a few persons only.

He then removed his clothing himself, his hands were bound by his own handkerchief, and not with a rope. Thus perished Louis XVI. King of France, aged thirty-nine years, five months, and three days, having reigned eighteen years. He had been in prison five months and eight days. The morning of that terrible day [of the king's death] we rose at six o'clock. The evening before my mother had scarcely strength enough to undress my brother and put him to bed; she then threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her bed, and we heard her through the night trembling with cold and sorrow.

At a quarter past six they opened our door to look for a prayer-book for my father's mass; we thought we were to go to him, and we still had that hope until the cries of joy of a frenzied populace came to inform us that the crime was consummated. We desired this shock, in order to cause an outflow of her gloomy sorrow and relieve the suffocated condition in which we saw her. We now had a little more liberty, the guards thinking we were about to be sent away. But nothing was able to calm the anguish of my mother—we could make no hope of any sort enter her heart; she was indifferent whether she lived or died.

She looked at us sometimes with a pity that made us shudder. Happily, grief increased my illness, and that occupied her. My own doctor, Brunier, and the surgeon La Caze were brought, and they cured me in a month. My mother would no longer go down into the garden, because that obliged her to pass the door of my father's room, which pained her too much; but fearing that want of air might harm my brother and myself, she asked, in February, to go up upon the Tower, which was granted to her.

It was discovered that a sealed package in the room of the municipals, which contained the king's seal, his ring, and several other things, had been opened, the seals broken, and the contents carried away. The municipals were very uneasy; but finally they believed it had been done by a thief who knew that the seal with the arms of France was set in gold. The person who took those things was rightly intentioned; he was not a thief; he did it for the right, because my mother wished the seal and ring to be saved for her son.

I know who that brave man was; but alas! I cannot name him, hoping that he may have intrusted those precious objects to some one else before he perished. They built a wall which separated us from the garden; they put shutters to the top of the Tower; and plugged all holes with care. On the 25th of March the chimney caught fire. That evening Chaumette, prosecutor of the Commune, came for the first time to see my mother, and he asked her if she desired anything.

My mother asked only for a door of communication between her room and that of my aunt. The two terrible nights we had passed in her room we had slept, my aunt and I, on one of her mattresses placed on the floor. The municipals opposed that request; but Chaumette said that in my mother's feeble state it might be necessary for her health, and he would speak of it to the Council general.

The next day he came back at ten in the morning with Pache, the mayor, and that dreadful Santerre, commander of the National Guard. Chaumette told my mother he had spoken to the Council of her request for a door, which was refused. She made no answer. Pache asked her if she had any complaints to make. My mother said, "No," and paid no further heed to him. Some time later we found certain municipal guards who soothed our griefs a little by their kind feeling. We knew after a while, those with whom we had to do; especially my mother, who saved us several times from trusting to a false show of interest.

I know all those who took an interest in us; I do not name them, for fear of compromising them as things now are, but the recollection of them is graven on my heart; and if I can never show them my gratitude, God will reward them; but if the day comes when I can name them they will be loved and esteemed by all virtuous persons. One evening a person brought some articles for my aunt; he was angry that this man should be allowed to enter, and not his daughter; he said things which led Pache, who was below, to send for him. They asked him why he was so displeased. They asked their names; he gave them, and declared that we had correspondence with the outside.

Angoulême, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte duchesse d' [WorldCat Identities]

To furnish proofs he said that one day my mother, on taking out her handkerchief, had let fall a pencil; and another day he had found wafers and a pen in a box in my aunt's room. After this denunciation, which he signed, they sent for his wife, who repeated the same thing; she accused several of the municipals, declared that we had had correspondence with my father during his trial, and denounced my doctor, Brunier who treated me for trouble in my foot , for having brought us news.

She signed all that, being led away by her husband; but, in the end, she had great remorse for it. That denunciation was made April 19; the next day she saw her daughter. They read us a decree of the Convention ordering that we be carefully searched, even to the mattresses. My poor brother was asleep; they pulled him roughly out of his bed, to search it; my mother held him, all shivering with cold.

They took from my mother the address of a shop she had always kept, a stick of sealing-wax from my aunt, and from me a Sacred Heart of Jesus and a prayer for France. Their search did not end till four in the morning. They were furious at having found nothing but trifles. Three days later they returned, and demanded to see my aunt in private.

They then questioned her on a hat they had found in her room; they wished to know whence it came, and how long she had had it, and why she had kept it. She answered that it had belonged to my father at the beginning of his imprisonment in the Temple; that she had asked for it, to preserve it for love of her brother. The municipals said they should take it away as a suspicious thing; my aunt insisted on keeping it, but was not allowed to do so.

They forced her to sign her answer and they carried away the hat. Every day my mother went up on the Tower to have us take the air. May 6th, at seven in the evening, a rather strong fever seized him, with headache and the pain in his side. At first he could not lie down, for it suffocated him. My mother was uneasy and asked the municipals for a doctor. They assured her the illness was nothing and that her motherly tenderness was needlessly frightened.

Nevertheless, they spoke to the Council and asked in my mother's name for Dr. They positively refused Brunier, whom Tison had recently denounced. Nevertheless, the fever became very strong. My aunt had the goodness to take my place in my mother's room, that I might not sleep in a fever atmosphere, and also that she might assist in nursing my brother; she took my bed, and I went to hers. The fever lasted several days, the attacks being worse at night. Though my mother asked for a doctor, it was several days before her request was granted. At last, on a Sunday, Thierry, the physician of prisons, was appointed by the Commune to take care of my brother.

As he came in the morning he found little fever, but my mother asked him to return in the afternoon, when he found it very high, and he disabused the municipals of the idea they had that my mother was anxious about nothing; he told them that, on the contrary, the matter was more serious than she thought.

He had the kindness to go and consult Brunier about my brother's illness and the remedies that should be given to him, because Brunier knew his constitution, he being our physician from infancy. He gave him some remedies, which did him good. Wednesday, he made him take medicine, and that night I returned to sleep in my mother's room. She felt much uneasiness on account of that medicine, because the last time that my brother had been purged he had frightful convulsions and she feared he might have them again.

She did not sleep all night. My brother, however, took his medicine, and it did him good without causing him any accidents. He still had attacks of fever from time to time and the stitch in his side continued. The guards were forbidden to let us go up on the Tower to take the air; an order always given when Paris was in disturbance. She answered no, and paid no further attention to them. My aunt, seeing that Chaumette did not go away, and knowing how much my mother suffered inwardly from his presence, asked him why he had come and why he remained. He answered that he visited all the prisons, they were all equal, and therefore he came to the Temple.

My aunt replied no, because, in some, persons were justly imprisoned, and others unjustly. Tison became insane; she was anxious about my brother's illness and had long been tortured by remorse; she languished and would not take the air. One day she began to talk to herself. Tison's insanity increased; she talked aloud of her wrong-doings, of her denunciations, of the prison, of the scaffold, of the queen, of her own family, and of our sorrows; admitting that because of her bad deeds she was unworthy to approach my family.

She thought that those whom she had denounced had perished. Every day she watched for the municipals whom she had accused; not seeing them she went to bed gloomy; there she had frightful dreams and uttered cries, which we heard. One day the porter, who did not know of this permission, refused entrance to the daughter. The municipals, finding the mother desperate, sent for her at ten at night. That late hour alarmed the woman still more; she was very unwilling to go down, and said to her husband: She went back with a municipal, but on the middle of the stairway she would neither go up nor down.

The municipal alarmed, called others to make her go up; when there, she would not go to bed, but talked and shouted, which prevented my family from sleeping. The next day, the doctor saw her and found her quite mad. She was always on her knees to my mother, begging her forgiveness. It is impossible to have more pity than my mother and my aunt had for this woman, to whom assuredly they had no reason to feel kindly. They took care of her and encouraged her all the time she remained in the Temple in this state.

They tried to calm her by the sincere assurance of their pardon. On the 3d of July, they read us a decree of the Convention ordering that my brother be separated from us and lodged in a more secure room in the Tower. Hardly had he heard it when he flung himself into his mother's arms uttering loud cries, and imploring not to be parted from her. My mother, on her side, was struck down by the cruel order; she would not give up her son, and defended, against the municipals, the bed on which she placed him.

They, absolutely determined to have him, threatened to employ violence and to call up the guard. An hour passed in resistance on her part, in threats and insults from the municipals, in tears and efforts from all of us. At last they threatened my mother so positively to kill him and us also that she had to yield for love of us. We rose, my aunt and I, for my poor mother no longer had any strength, but after we had dressed him she took him and gave him into the hands of the municipals herself, bathing him with tears and foreboding that she would never see him again. The poor little boy kissed us all very tenderly and went away in tears with the municipals.

My mother charged them to ask permission of the Council general to let her see her son, if only at meals, and they promised her to do so.

She was overcome by the separation; but her anguish was at its height when she learned that Simon, a shoemaker, whom she had seen as a municipal, was intrusted with the care of the unfortunate child. She asked incessantly to see him, but could not obtain it; my brother, on his side, wept for two whole days, never ceasing to ask to see us. The municipals no longer remained in my mother's room; we were locked in night and day and under bolts. This was a comfort, as it relieved us of the presence of such persons. The guards came only three times a day, to bring our meals and examine the windows to make sure that the bars were not cut.

We had no one to wait upon us, but we liked this best; my aunt and I made the beds, and served my mother. In the cabinet in the tourelle was a narrow opening through which we could see my brother when he went up to the battlements, and the sole pleasure my mother had was to see him through that little chink as he passed in the distance. She rarely heard news of him, whether from the municipals or from Tison, who sometimes saw Simon. Tison, to repair his past conduct, behaved better, and sometimes gave news to us.

As for Simon, he maltreated my brother beyond what we could have imagined, and all the more because the child wept at being parted from us; but at last he frightened him so much that the poor boy dared not shed tears. My aunt entreated Tison, and those who in pity gave us news of him, to conceal these horrors from my mother; she knew or suspected enough.

The rumour ran that my brother had been seen on the boulevard; the guards, vexed at not seeing him, declared he was no longer in the Temple. There my brother, whom they had not had time to change entirely, complained of being separated from my mother, and asked to see the law that ordered it; but they made him hold his tongue.

The members of the Convention, who had come to make certain of my brother's presence, went up to my mother. Her husband died in and was buried next to his father. Her nephew, who now styled himself as the comte de Chambord , and his sister joined her there. In , Louis Philippe 's reign ended in a revolution and, for the second time, France became a Republic. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Portrait by Antoine-Jean Gros , Kostanjevica Monastery , Nova Gorica , Slovenia. Louis, Duke of Burgundy 8. Louis XV of France Louis, Dauphin of France Louis XVI of France Augustus II of Poland Augustus III of Poland Christiane Eberhardine of Bayreuth 5.

Maria Josepha of Saxony Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor Maria Josepha of Austria Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick 1. Charles V, Duke of Lorraine Leopold, Duke of Lorraine Eleanor of Austria 6. Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate 3. Marie Antoinette of Austria Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg 7.

Subcategories

Maria Theresa of Austria Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen. The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter. Women of Modern France. To which is Added an Appendix: The Court of France The Life of Marie Antoinette. Assassination, Politics, and Miracles: France and the Royalist Reaction of Mystery could be solved after grave is exhumed".

Archived from the original on 28 April Retrieved 10 October Archived copy as title link. Kingdom of France portal Biography portal. Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty. Princesses of the Blood: Sophie, Mademoiselle d'Artois Louise d'Artois. Henry IV of France. Margaret of Valois Marie de' Medici. Louis XIV of France. Louis XV of France. Louis XVI of France. Louis had no children; he died aged 10 in Charles X of France. Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy. Notes 1 also an Infante or Infanta of Spain 2 also an Archduchess of Austria 3 both p Philip was the first Bourbon king of Spain, the country's present ruling house.

Queens and empresses of France. Princesses of France by marriage. Marie de Bourbon Princess Marguerite of Lorraine. Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este. Retrieved from " https: Views Read Edit View history. In other projects Wikimedia Commons. This page was last edited on 25 October , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Louis, Duke of Burgundy. Louis, Dauphin of France. Augustus II of Poland. Augustus III of Poland. Christiane Eberhardine of Bayreuth.