queen was
compelled to rise and dress in the presence of the wretches who exulted
over her abasement. She clasped her daughter for one frantic moment
convulsively to her heart, covered her with embraces and kisses, spoke a
few words of impassioned tenderness to her sister, and then, as if
striving by violence to throw herself from the room, she inadvertently
struck her forehead a severe blow against the low portal of the door.
"Did you hurt you?" inquired one of the men. "Oh no!" was the despairing
reply, "nothing now can further harm me."

A few lights glimmered dimly from the street lamps as the queen entered
the carriage, guarded by soldiers, and was conveyed through the somber
streets to her last earthly abode. The prison of the Conciergerie
consists of a series of subterranean dungeons beneath the floor of the
Palais de Justice. More damp, dark, gloomy dens of stone and iron the
imagination can not conceive. Down the dripping and slippery steps she
was led, groping her way by the feeble light of a tallow candle, until
she approached, through a labyrinth of corridors, an iron door.
It grated upon its hinges, and she was thrust in, two soldiers
accompanying her, and the door was closed. It was midnight. The lantern
gave just light enough to show her the horrors of her cell. The floor
was covered with mud and water, while little streams trickled down the
stone walls. A miserable pallet in one corner, an old pine table and one
chair, were all the comforts the kingdom of France could afford its
queen.

[Illustration: MARIA ANTOINETTE IN THE CONCIERGERIE.]

The heart of the wife of the jailer was touched with compassion in
view of this unmitigated misery. She did not dare to speak words of
kindness, for they would be reported by the guard. She, however,
prepared for her some food, ventured to loan her some needles, and a
ball of worsted, and communicated intelligence of her daughter and
son. The Committee of Public Safety heard of these acts of mercy, and
the jailer and his wife were immediately arrested, and plunged into
those dungeons into which they would have allowed the spirit of
humanity to enter. The shoes of the queen, saturated with water, soon
fell from her feet. Her stockings and her dress, from the humidity
of the air, were in tatters. Two soldiers, with drawn swords, were
stationed by her side night and day, with the command never, even
for one moment, to turn their eyes from her. The daughter of the new