Chapter XXII. The Plan of the Escape.

Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth listened again at the door, and as Simon was just then beginning a new verse of his ribald song, they carefully unrolled the paper and spread it out before them.

"Read it to me, sister," said the queen. "My eyes are bad and pain me very much; and then the words make more impression when I hear them than when I read them; I beg you therefore to read it."

In a light whisper the princess began to read "The Plan of Escape." "The queen and Princess Elizabeth must put on men’s clothes. The necessary garments are already in their possession, for T. and L. have within the last few days secreted them in the cushions and mattresses. In addition, the queen receives to-day a dirty, torn boy’s suit and a peruke, and a pair of soiled children’s shoes. These are for the dauphin and Madame Royale; and if the queen looks attentively at the things, she will find that they are exact copies of the clothing in which the two children appear who always accompany the lamplighter into the tower and assist him in lighting the lamps. So much for the clothing. The plan of escape is as follows: To-morrow evening, at six o’clock, the royal children will change their dress in the little tower next to the chamber of the queen. In their soiled costume they will remain within the tower, whither it is known that Tison and his wife never come, and will wait there until some one gives them a signal and calls them. Toulan and Lepitre will arrange to have the watch again to-morrow in the tower. At a quarter before seven in the evening, Toulan will give a pinch of snuff to Madame Tison and her husband, who are both passionately fond of it, and they will speedily take it as they always do. This pinch of snuff will consist entirely of colored opium. They will fall into a heavy sleep, which will last at least seven hours, and during this times the flight of all the members of the royal family must be accomplished—"

"Wait a moment, sister," whispered the queen, "I feel dizzy, and my heart beats violently, as if we were engaged now in the very execution of the plan. It seems to me as if, in the darkness of the dreadful night which surrounds us, a glimmer of hope was suddenly appearing, and my eyes are blinded with it. Oh, sister, do you really think it possible that we can escape this place of torment?"

"Escape we will certainly, my dear sister," answered Elizabeth, gently, "but it lies in God’s hands whether it is our bodies or our souls only that will escape. If we do not succeed, they will kill us, and then our freed souls will ascend to God. Oh, my noble queen and sister, let us pray that God would give us courage and steadfastness to hope in Him and to conform to His will."

"Yes, sister, let us pray," said the queen, folding her hands, and reverentially bending her head. Then after a pause, in which they could hear from without the noisy laughter of Simon and his comrades, the queen raised herself up, and her countenance had regained its wonted calm and grave expression.

"And now, Elizabeth, read on further. Let us hear the continuation of the plan."

Madame Elizabeth took the paper and read on in a whispering voice: "As soon as Tison and his wife have fallen asleep, the queen and Madame Elizabeth will put on their clothes. Over the men’s garments they will throw the cloaks which Toulan brought yesterday, and these cloaks will disguise their gait and size. But care must be taken that the tri-colored sashes of the commissaries which Lepitre brought yesterday with the admission-cards of the same authorities, should peep out from beneath the cloaks so as to be visible to every one. Thus arrayed, the two ladies will pass by the sentry, showing him the card as they go out (meanwhile talking with Lepitre), leave the Temple, and go with Lepitre to the Rue de la Conderie, where M. de Jarjayes will be waiting to conduct the ladies farther."

"But the children," whispered the queen, "do the children not accompany us? Oh! they ought not to think that I would leave this place while my dear children are compelled to remain here. What is to be done with the children, Elizabeth?"

"We shall soon learn that, sister; allow me to read on. ’At seven o’clock, as soon as the guard is changed, a man disguised as a lamplighter, with his tin filler in his hand, will appear at the gate of the Temple, knock loudly and demand of the guard that his children, who had this day been taking care of the lantern, should be allowed to come out. On this, Toulan will bring the dauphin and Madame Royale in their changed costume, and while delivering them over to the supposed lamplighter he will scold him soundly for not taking care of the lanterns himself, but giving it to the children. This is the plan whose execution is possible and probable, if every thing is strictly followed. Before the affair is discovered, there will be at least seven hours’ advantage and the royal family will be able, with the passes already secured by M. Jarjayes, to be a long way off before their flight will be discovered by Tison. In a secure house, whither Toulan will lead them, the royal family will find simple citizen’s clothing. Without exciting any stir, and accompanied by Messieurs Jarjayes and Toulan, they will reach Normandy. A packet-boat furnished by an English friend lies in readiness to receive the royal family and take them to their—’ "

"Good-day, Madame Tison!" cried the dauphin loudly, "good-day, my dear Madame Tison!"

Madame Elizabeth hastily concealed the paper in her bosom, and Marie Antoinette had scarcely time to hide the ball of thread in her pocket, when Tison appeared upon the threshold of the door, looked with her sharp lynx-eyes around, and then fixed them upon the two ladies.

She saw that Marie Antoinette did not display her accustomed dignified calmness, and that Elizabeth’s pale cheeks were unusually red.

"Something is going on," said the spy to herself, "and what does it mean that to-day the commissaries are not in the anteroom, and that they let these women carry on their chattering entirely unwatched?"

"Madame has been reading?" asked Tison, subjecting every object upon the table before which the ladies were sitting, to a careful scrutiny. "Madame has been reading," she repeated; "I heard paper rattling, and I see no book."

"You are under a mistake," replied Madame Elizabeth, "we have not been reading, we have been sewing; but supposing we were reading, is there any wrong in that? Have they made any law that forbids that?"

"No," answered Tison, "no—I only wondered how people could rattle paper and there be none there, but all the same—the ladies of course have a right to read, and we must be satisfied with that."

And she went out, looking right and left like a hound on the scent, and searching every corner of the room.

"I must see what kind of officials we have here to-day," said Tison to herself, slipping through the little side-door and through the corridor; "I shouldn’t wonder if it were Toulan and Lepitre again, for every time when they two—right!" she ejaculated, looking through the outer door, "right! it is they, Toulan and Lepitre. I must see what Simon’s wife has to say to that."

She slipped down the broad staircase, and passed through the open door into the porter’s lodge. Madame Simon, one of the most savage of the knitters, had shortly returned from the guillotine, and was sitting upon her rush chair, busily counting on a long cotton stocking which she held in her hand.

"How many heads to-day?" asked Tison.

Madame Simon slowly shook her head, decorated with a white knit cap.

"It is hardly worth the pains," she said dismally,—"the machine works badly, and the judges are neglectful. Only five cars to-day, and on every one only seven persons." "What!" cried Tison, "only thirty-five heads to-day in all?"

"Yes, only thirty-five heads," repeated Madame Simon, shaking her head; "I have just been counting on my stocking, and I find only thirty-five seam-stitches, for every seam-stitch means a head. For such a little affair we have had to sit six hours in the wet and cold on the platform. The machine works too slowly, I say— altogether too slowly. The judges are easy, and there is no more pleasure to be derived from the executions."

"They must be stirred up," said Tison with a fiendish look; "your husband must speak with his friend, citizen Marat, and tell him that his best friends the knitters, and most of all, Simon’s wife, are dissatisfied, and if it goes on so, the women will rise and hurry all the men to the guillotine. That will stir them up, for they do respect the knitters, and if they fear the devil, they fear yet more his proud grandmother, and every one of us market-women and knitters is the devil’s grandmother."

"Yes, they do respect us and they shall," said Madame Simon, setting her glistening needles in motion again, and working slowly on the stocking; "I will myself speak with citizen Marat, and believe me, I will fire him up, and then we shall have better play, and see more cars driven up to the guillotine. We must keep our eyes well open, arid denounce all suspicious characters."

"I have my eyes always open," cried Tison, with a coarse laugh, "and I suspect traitors before they have committed any thing. There, for example, are the two officials, Toulan and Lepitre, do you have confidence in them?"

"I have no confidence in them whatever, and I have never had any confidence in them," answered Madame Simon, with dignity, and setting her needles in more rapid motion. "In these times you must trust nobody, and least of all those who are so very earnest to keep guard over the Austrian woman; for a true republican despises the aristocracy altogether too much to find it agreeable to be with such scum, and shows it as much as he can, but Toulan is always wanting to be there. Wait a moment, and I will tell you how many times Toulan and Lepitre have kept guard the present month."

She drew a little memorandum-book from her reticule, which hung by black bands from her brown hairy arm, and turned over the leaves. "There, here it is," she said.

"To-day is the 20th of February, and the two men have already kept guard eight times the present month. That is three times as many as they need to do. Every one of the officials who were appointed to keep guard in the Temple is obliged to serve only once a week, and both of these traitors are now here for the eighth time. And my husband is so stupid and so blinded that he believes this prattler Toulan when he tells him he comes here merely to be with citizen Simon; but they cannot come round me with their talk; they cannot throw dust in my eyes. I shall keep them open, wide open, let me tell you."

"They are not sitting inside in the antechamber to-day," whispered Tison, "but outside on the landing, and they have closed the door of the anteroom, so that the Austrian has been entirely alone and unobserved these hours."

"Alone!" cried the knitter, and her polished needles struck so violently against each other that you could hear them click. "My husband cannot be to blame for that; Toulan must have talked him into it, and he must have a reason for it; he must have a reason, and if it is only from his having pity upon her, that is enough and more than enough to bring him under suspicion and to build an accusation upon. He must be removed, say I. There shall no such compassionate worms as he creep into the Temple. I will clear them out—I will clear them out with human blood!"

She looked so devilish, her eyes glared so with such a cruel coldness, and such a fiendish smile played upon her pale, thin lips, that even Madame Tison was afraid of her, and felt as if a cold, poisonous spider was creeping slowly over her heart.

"They are sitting still outside, you say?" asked Madame Simon, after a pause.

"Yes, they are still sitting outside upon the landing, and the Austrian woman is at this time alone unwatched with her brood, and she will be alone for two hours yet, for there is no change of guard till then."

"That is true, yes, that is true," cried the knitter, and her nostrils expanded like those of the hyena when on the scent of blood. "They will sit up there two hours longer, playing cards and singing stupid songs, and wheedling my monkey of a husband with their flatteries, making him believe that they love him, love him boundlessly, and they let themselves be locked into the Temple for his sake, and—oh! if I had them here, I would strangle them with my own hands! I would make a dagger of every one of my knitting-needles and thrust it into their hearts! But quiet, quiet," she continued in a grumbling tone, "every thing must go on in a regular way. Will you take my place here for half an hour and guard the door? I have something important to do, something very important."

"It will be a very great honor," replied Madame Tison, "a very great honor to be the substitute of one so well known and respected as you are, of whom every one knows that she is the best patriot and the most courageous knitter, whose eyelashes never quiver, and who can calmly go on with her stitches when the heads fall from the guillotine into the basket."

"If I did tremble, and my eyelashes did quiver, I would dash my own fists into my eyes!" said Madame Simon, with her hard coarse voice, rising and throwing her thin, threadbare cloak over her shoulders. "If I found a spark of sympathy in my heart, I would inundate it with the blood of aristocrats till it should be extinguished, and till that should be, I would despise and hate myself, for I should be not only a bad patriot, but a bad daughter of my unfortunate father. The cursed aristocrats have not only brought misery on our country and people, but they murdered my dear good father. Yes, murdered I say. They said he was a high traitor. And do you know why? Because he told aloud the nice stories about the Austrian woman, who was then our queen, which, had been whispered into his ear, and because he said that the king was a mere tool in the hands of his wife. They shot my good, brave father for what he had said, and which they called treason, although it was only the naked truth. Yet I will not work myself into a passion about it, and I will only thank God that that time is past, and I will do my part that it shall not come back. And that is why we must be awake and on our guard, that no aristocrat and no loyalist tie left, but that they all be guillotined, all! There, take your place on my chair, and take my knitting-work. Ah! if it could speak to you as it does to me—if it could tell you what heads we two have seen fall, young and old, handsome, distinguished—it would be fine sport for you and make you laugh. But good-by just now! Keep a strict lookout! I shall come back soon."

And she did come back soon, this worthy woman, with triumphant bearing and flashing eyes, looking as the cat looks when it has a mouse in its soft velvety paws, and is going to push its poisonous claws into the quivering flesh. She took her knitting-work up and bade Tison to go up again to her post.

"And when you can," she said, "just touch the Austrian woman a little, and pay her off for being so many hours unwatched. In that way you will merit a reward from the people, and that is as well as deserving one of God. Provoke her—provoke the proud Austrian!"

"It is very hard to do it," said Tison, sighing—"very hard, I assure you, for the Austrian is very cold and moderate of late. Since Louis Capet died, the widow is very much changed, and now she is so uniform in her temper that it seems as if nothing would provoke or excite her."

"What weak and tender creatures you all are!" said Simon’s wife, with a shrug. "It is very plain that they fed you on milk when you were young. But my mother nursed me with hate. I was scarcely ten years when they shot my father, and not a day passed after that without my mother’s telling me that we must avenge his murder on the whole lineage of the king. I had to swear that I would do it. She gave me, for my daily food, hatred against the aristocrats; it was the meat to my sauce, the sugar to my coffee, the butter to my bread! I lived and throve upon it. Look at me, and see what such fare has made of me! Look at me! I am not yet twenty-four years old, and yet I have the appearance of an old woman, and I have the feeling and the experience of an old woman! Nothing moves me now, and the only thing that lives and burns in my heart is revenge. Believe me, were I in your place I should know how to exasperate the Austrian; I should succeed in drawing out her tears."

"Well, and how would you begin? Really, I should like to know how to bring this incarnation of pride to weeping."

"Has not she children?" asked Madame Simon, with a horrible calmness. "I would torture and provoke the children, and that would soon make the heart of the woman humble and pliable. Oh, she may count herself happy that I am not in your place, and that her children are not under my tender hands. But if it ever happens that I can lay my fingers upon the shoulders of the little wolves, I will give them something that will make them cry out, and make the old wolf howl with rage. I will show her as little favor then as she showed when my poor mother and I were begging for my dear father! Go up, go up and try at once. Plague the children, and you will see that that will make the Austrian pliable."

"That is fine talk," muttered Tison, as she went up the staircase, "but she has no children, while I have a daughter, a dear, good daughter. She is not with me, but with my mother in Normandy, because she can be taken better care of there than here. It is better for the good child that she has not gone through these evil days full of blood and grief with us. But I am always thinking of her, and when one of these two children here looks up to me so gravely with great, open eyes, it always makes me think of my Solonge. She has exactly such large, innocent eyes, and that touches my heart so that I cannot be harsh with the children. They, of course, are not at all to blame for having such bad, miserable parents, who have treated the people shamefully, and made them poor and wretched. No, they have had nothing to do with it, and I cannot be severe with the children, for I am always thinking of my little Solonge! I will provoke the Austrian woman as much as I can, but not the children—no, not the children!"

Meanwhile, Mistress Simon had taken her place upon the chair near the open door in the porter’s lodge, and sat there with her cold, immovable face staring into empty space with her great coal-black, glistening eyes, while her hands were busily flying, making the polished knitting-needles click against each other.

She was still sitting there, when at last her husband came down the stairs to open the outer door of the Temple, conduct his friends past the inner court, and to bring back the two officials who were to keep guard during the night.

They passed the knitter with a friendly salutation and a bit of pleasantry—Toulan stopping a moment to ask the woman after her welfare, and to say a few smooth words to her about her courage and her great force of character.

She listened quietly, let him go on with his talk, and when he had ended, slowly raised her great eyes from her knitting to him.

"You are a traitor," she said, with coldness, and without any agitation. "Yes, you are a traitor, and you, too, will have your turn at the guillotine!"

Toulan paled a little, but collected himself immediately, took leave of the knitter with a smile, and hastened after the officials, who were waiting for him at the open door—the two who were to hold the watch during the night having already entered.

Simon closed the door after them, exchanged a few words with them, and then went into his lodge to join his rigid better half.

"This has been a pleasant afternoon, and it is a great pity that it is gone, for I have had a very good time. We have played cards, sung, smoked, and Toulan has made jokes and told stories, and made much fun. I always wonder where he gets so many fine stories, and he tells them so well that I could hear him day and night. Now that he is gone, it seems tedious and dull enough here. Well, we must comfort ourselves that to-morrow will come by and by."

"What do you mean by that?" asked his wife, sternly.

"What sort of a day do you expect to-morrow to be?"

"A pleasant day, my dear Heloise, for Citizen Toulan will have the watch again. I begged him so long, that he at last promised to exchange with Citizen Pelletan, whose turn regularly comes tomorrow. Pelletan is not well, and it would be very hard for him to sit up there all day, and, besides, he would be dreadfully stupid. It is a great deal pleasanter to have Toulan here with his jokes and jolly stories, and so I begged him to come and take Pelletan’s place. He is going to accommodate me and come."

His wife did not answer a word, but broke out in a burst of shrill, mocking laughter, and with her angry black eyes she scrutinized her husband’s red, bloated face, as though she were reading him through and through.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, angrily. "I would like to be beyond hearing when you give way in that style. What are you laughing at?"

"Because I wonder at you, you Jack," she answered sharply. "Because you are determined to make an ass of yourself, and let dust be thrown in your eyes, and put yourself at the disposal of every one who soaps you over with smooth words."

"Come," said Simon, "none of that coarseness! and if you—"

"Hist!" she answered, commandingly. "I will show you at once that I have told you the truth, and that you are making an ass of yourself, or at least that you are on the point of doing so. Now, listen."

The knitter laid her work aside, and had a long conversation in a whisper with her husband. When it ended, Simon stood up wearing a dark look, and walked slowly backward and forward in the little room. Then he stopped and shook his fist threateningly at the room above. "She shall pay for this," he muttered—" by God in heaven! she shall pay for this. She is a good-for-nothing seducer! Even in prison she does not leave off coquetting, and flirting, and turning the heads of the men! It is disgraceful, thoroughly disgraceful, and she shall pay for it! I will soon find means to have my revenge on her!"

During the whole evening Mistress Tison did not leave her place behind the glass door for a moment, and at each stolen glance which the queen cast thither she always encountered the malicious, glaring eyes of the keeper, directed at her with an impudent coolness.

At last came the hour of going to bed—the hour to which the queen looked impatiently forward. At night she was at least alone and unguarded. After the death of the king, it had been found superfluous to trouble the officials with the wearisome nightwatches, and they were satisfied, after darkness had set in and the candles were lighted, with locking the three doors which led to the inner rooms.

Did Marie Antoinette weep and moan at night, did she talk with her sister, did she walk disconsolately up and down her room?—the republic granted her the privilege. She could, during the night at least, have a few hours of freedom and of solitude.

But during the night Marie Antoinette did not weep or moan; this night her thoughts were not directed to the sad past, but to the future; for the first ray of hope which had fallen upon her path for a long time now encountered her.

"To escape, to be free!" she said, and the shadow of a smile flitted over her face. "Can you believe it? Do you consider it possible, sister?"

"I should like to believe it," whispered Elizabeth, "but there is something in my heart that reminds me of Varennes, and I only pray to God that He would give us strength to bear all the ills they inflict upon us. We must, above all things, keep our calmness and steadfastness, and be prepared for the worst as well as the best."

"Yes, you are right, we must do that," said Marie Antoinette, collecting herself. "When one has suffered as we have, it is almost more difficult to hope for good fortune than to prepare for new terrors. I will compel myself to be calm. I will read Toulan’s plan, once more, and will impress it word for word upon my memory, so as to burn the dangerous sheet as soon as possible."

"And while you are doing that I will unwind the ball that Toulan brought us, and which certainly contains something heavy," said the princess.

"What a grand, noble heart! what a lofty character has our friend Toulan!" whispered the queen. "His courage is inexhaustible, his fidelity is invincible, and he is entirely unselfish. How often have I implored him to express one wish to me that I might gratify, or to allow me to give him a draft of some amount! He is not to be shaken- -he wants nothing, he will take nothing. Ah, Elizabeth, he is the first friend, of all who ever drew toward me, who made no claims and was contented with a kind word. When I implored him yesterday to tell me in what way I could do him a service, he said: ’If you want to make me happy, regard me always as your most devoted and faithful servant, and give me a name that you give to no one besides. Call me Fidele, and if you want to give me another remembrancer than that which will always live in my heart, present me, as the highest token of your favor, with the little gold smelling-bottle which I saw you use in the Logograph box on that dreadful day.’ I gave him the trinket at once. He kneeled down in order to receive it, and when he kissed my hand his hot tears fell upon it. Ah, Elizabeth, no one of those to whom in the days of our happiness I gave jewels, and to whom I gave hundreds of thousands, cherished for me so warm thanks as Toulan—no, as Fidele—for the poor, insignificant little remembrancer."

"God is good and great," said the princess, who, while the queen was speaking, was busily engaged in unwinding the thread; "in order that we might not lose faith in humanity and confidence in man, He sent us in His mercy this noble, true-hearted one, whose devotion, disinterestedness, and fidelity were to be our compensation for all the sad and heart-rending experiences which we have endured. And, therefore, for the sake of this one noble man let us pardon the many from whom we have received only injury; for it says in the Bible that, for the sake of one righteous man, many sinners shall be forgiven, and Toulan is a righteous man."

"Yes, he is a righteous man, blessings on him!" whispered the queen. Then she took the paper in her hand, and began to read the contents softly, repeating every sentence to herself, and imprinting every one of those hope-bringing words upon her memory; and while she read, her poor, crushed heart gradually began to beat with firmer confidence, and to embrace the possibility of realizing the plan of Toulan and finding freedom in flight.

During this time Princess Elizabeth had unwound the thread of the ball, and brought to light a little packet enveloped in paper.

"Take it, my dear Antoinette," she said, "it is addressed to you."

Marie Antoinette took it and carefully unfolded the paper. Then she uttered a low, carefully-suppressed cry, and, sinking upon her knees, pressed it with its contents to her lips.

"What is it, sister?" cried the princess, hurrying to her. "What does Toulan demand?"

The queen gave the paper to the princess. "Read," she said—"read it, sister."

Elizabeth read: "Your majesty wished to possess the relics which King Louis left to you. They consist of the wedding-ring of his majesty, his little seal, and the hair which the king himself cut off. These three things lay on the chimney-piece in the closed sitting-room of the king. The supervisor of the Temple took them from Clery’s hand, to whom the king gave them, and put them under seal. I have succeeded in getting into the sitting-room; I have opened the sealed packet, taken out the sacred relics, put articles of similar character in their place, and sealed it up again. With this letter are the relics which belong to your majesty, and I swear by all that is sacred and dear to me—I swear by the head of my queen, that they are the true articles which the blessed martyr, King Louis XVI., conveyed to his wife in his testament. I have stolen them for the exalted heir of the crown, and I shall one day glory in the theft before the throne of God." [Footnote: Goncourt, " Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 384.]

"See, Elizabeth," said the queen, unfolding the little things, each one of which was carefully wrapped in paper—"see, there is his wedding-ring. There on the inside are the four letters, ’M. A. A. A., 19th April, 1770.’ The day of our marriage!—a day of joy for Austria as well as for France! Then—but I will not think of it. Let me look further. Here is the seal! The cornelian engraved on two sides. Here on one side the French arms; as you turn the stone, the portrait of our son the Dauphin of France, with his helmet on his head. Oh! my son, my poor dear child, will your loved head ever bear any other ornament than a martyr’s crown; will God grant you to wear the helmet of the warrior, and to battle for your rights and your throne? How pleased my husband was when on his birthday I brought him this seal! how tenderly his looks rested upon the portrait of his son, his successor! and now—oh, now! King Louis XVI. cruelly, shamefully murdered, and he who ought to be the King of France, Louis XVII., is nothing but a poor, imprisoned child—a king without a crown, without hope, without a future!"

"No, no, Antoinette," whispered Elizabeth, who had kneeled before the queen and had tenderly put her arms around her—" no, Antoinette, do not say that your son has no hope and no future. Build upon God, hope that the undertaking which we are to-morrow to execute will lead to a fortunate result, that we shall flee from here, that we shall be free, that we shall be able to reach England. Oh, yes, let us hope that Toulan’s fine and bold plan will succeed, and then it may one day be that the son of my dear brother, grown to be a young man, may put the helmet on his head, gird himself with the sword, reconquer the throne of his fathers, and take possession of it as King Louis XVII. Therefore let us hope, sister."

"Yes, therefore let us hope" whispered the queen, drying her tears. "And here at last," she continued, opening the remaining paper, "here is the third relic, the hair of the king! —the only thing which is left us of the martyr king, the unfortunate husband of an unfortunate wife, the pitiable king of a most pitiable people! Oh, my king! they have laid your poor head that bore this white hair— they have laid it upon the scaffold, and the axe, the dreadful axe— "

The queen uttered a loud shriek of horror, sprang up, and raised both her hands in conjuration to Heaven, while a curse just trembled on her lips. But Princess Elizabeth threw herself into her arms, and pressed on the cold, quivering lips of the queen a long, fervent kiss.

"For God’s sake, sister," she whispered, "speak softly. If Tison heard your cry, we are lost. Hush! it seems to me I hear steps, hide the things. Let us hurry into bed. Oh, for God’s sake, quick!"

She huddled the papers together, and put them hastily into her bosom, while Marie Antoinette, gathering up the relics, dashed into her bed.

"She is coming," whispered Elizabeth, as she slipped into her bed. "We must pretend to be asleep."

And in fact Princess Elizabeth was right. The glass-door, which led from the sleeping-room of the children to the little corridor, and from there to the chamber of Mistress Tison, was slowly and cautiously opened, and she came with a lamp in her hand into the children’s room. She stood near the door, listening and spying around. In the beds of the children she could hear the long-drawn, calm breathing, which indicated peaceful slumbers; and in the open, adjoining apartment, in which the two ladies slept, nothing was stirring.

"But I did hear a sound plainly," muttered Tison. "I was awaked by a loud cry, and when I sat up in bed I heard people talking."

She stole to the beds of the children, and let the light fall upon their faces. "They are sleeping soundly enough," she muttered, "they have not cried or spoken, but we will see how it is in the other room." Slowly, with the lamp in her hand, she crept into the neighboring apartment. The two ladies lay motionless upon their beds, closing their eyes quickly when Mistress Tison crossed the threshold, and praying to God for courage and steadfastness.

Tison went first to the bed of Princess Elizabeth and let the lamp fall full upon her face. The glare seemed to awaken her. "What is it?" she cried, "what has happened? sister, what has happened? where are you, Marie Antoinette?"

"Here, here I am, Elizabeth," cried the queen, rising suddenly up in bed, as if awakened. "Why do you call me, and who is here?"

"It is I," muttered Tison, angrily. "That is the way if one has a bad conscience! One is startled then with the slightest sound."

"We have no bad conscience," said Elizabeth, gently, "but you know that if we are awakened from sleep we cry out easily, and we might be thinking that some one was waking us to bring us happy tidings."

"I hope so," cried Tison, with a scornful laugh, "Happy news for you! that means unhappy and sad news for France and for the French people. No, thank God! I did not waken you to bring you any good news."

"Well," said the queen, gently, "tell us why you have wakened us and what you have to communicate to us."

"I have nothing at all to communicate to you," growled Tison, "and you know best whether I wake you or you were already awake, talking and crying aloud. Hist! it is not at all necessary that you answer, I know well enough that you are capable of lying. I tell you my ears are open and my eyes too. I let nothing escape me; you have talked and you have cried aloud, and if it occurs again I shall report it to the supervisor and have a watch put here in the night again, that the rest of us may have a little quiet in the night-time, and not have to sleep like the hares, with our eyes open."

"But," said the princess gently, "but dear woman—"

"Hush!" interrupted Tison, commandingly, "I am not your ’dear woman,’ I am the wife of Citizen Tison, and I want none of your confidence, for confidence from such persons as you are, might easily bring me to the scaffold."

She now passed through the whole room with her slow, stealthy tread, let the light fall upon every article of furniture and the floor, examined all the objects that lay upon the table, and then, after one last threatening look at the beds of the two ladies, went slowly out. She stopped again at the cribs of the children, and looked at them with a touch of gentleness. "How quietly they sleep!" the whispered. "They lie there exactly as they lay before. One would think they were smiling in their sleep—I suppose they are playing with angels. I should like to know how angels come into this old, horrid Temple, and what Simon’s wife would say if she knew they came in here at night without her permission. See, see," she continued, "the boy is laughing again, and spreading out his hands, as if he wanted to catch the angels. Ah! I should like to know if my dear little Solange is sleeping as soundly as these children, and whether she smiles in her sleep and plays with angels; I should like to know if she dreams of her parents, my dear little Solange, and whether she sometimes sees her poor mother, who loves her so and yearns toward her so tenderly that" [Footnote: This Mistress Tison, the cruel keeper of the queen, soon after this fell into lunacy, owing both to her longings after her daughter and her compunctions of conscience for her treatment of the queen. The first token of her insanity was her falling upon her knees before Marie Antoinette, and begging pardon for all the pain she had occasioned, and amid floods of tears accusing herself as the one who would be answerable for the death of the queen. She then fell into such dreadful spasms, that four men were scarcely able to hold her. They carried her into the Hotel Dieu, where she died after two days of the most dreadful sufferings and bitter reproaches of herself.—See Goncourt, p. 280. ]

She could not go on; tears extinguished her utterance, and she hastened out, to silence her longings on the pillow of her bed.

The ladies listened a long time in perfect silence; then, when every thing was still again, they raised themselves up softly, and began to talk to each other in the faintest of whispers, and to make their final preparations for the flight of the morrow. They then rose and drew from the various hiding-places the garments which they were to use, placed the various suits together, and then tried to put them on. A fearful, awful picture, such as a painter of hell, such as Breugel could not surpass in horror!—a queen and a princess, two tender, pale, harmless women, busied, deep in the night, as if dressing for a masquerade, in transforming themselves into those very officials who had led the king to the scaffold, and who, with their pitiless iron hands, were detaining the royal family in prison!

There they stood, a queen, a princess, clad in the coarse, threadbare garments of republican officials, the tri-colored sashes of the "one indivisible republic" around their bodies, their heads covered with the three-cornered hats, on which the tri-colored cockade glittered. They stood and viewed each other with sad looks and heavy sighs. Ah, what bright, joyous laughter would have sprung from the lips of the queen in the days of her happiness, if she had wanted to hide her beauty in such attire for some pleasant masquerade at Trianon! What charming sport it would have been then and there! How would her friends and courtiers have laughed! How they would have admired the queen in her original costume, which might well have been thought to belong to the realm of dreams and fantasies! A tri-colored cockade—a figment of the brain—a tricolored sash—a merry dream! The lilies rule over France, and will rule forever!

No laughter resounded in the desolate room, scantily lighted with the dim taper—no laughter as the queen and the princess put on their strange, fearful attire. It was no masquerade, but a dreadful, horrible reality; and as they looked at each other wearing the costume of revolutionists, tears started from the eyes of the queen; the princess folded her hands and prayed; and she too could not keep back the drops that slowly coursed over her cheeks.

The lilies of France are faded and torn from the ground! From the palace of the Tuileries waved the tri-color of the republic, and in the palace of the former Knights Templars is a pale, sad woman, with gray hair and sunken eyes, a broken heart, and a bowed form. This pale, sad shadow of the past is Marie Antoinette, once the Queen of France, the renowned beauty, the first woman in a great kingdom, now the widow of an executed man, she herself probably with one foot—

No, no, she will be saved! God has sent her a deliverer, a friend, and this friend, this helper in her need, has made every thing ready for her flight.