ent, apparently
that the queen might experience a few more emotions of torture as she
contemplated the abode of her past grandeur. Maria leaned back upon the
railing, utterly regardless of the clamor around her, and fixed her eyes
long and steadfastly upon the theater of all her former happiness. The
thought of her husband, her children, her home, for a moment overcame
her, and a few tears trickled down her cheeks and fell upon the floor of
the cart. But, instantly regaining her composure, she looked around
again upon the multitude, waving like an ocean over the whole
amphitheater, with an air of majesty expressive of her superiority over
all earthly ills. A few turns more of the wheels brought her to the foot
of the guillotine. It was upon the same spot where her husband had
fallen. She calmly, firmly looked at the dreadful instrument of death,
scrutinizing all its arrangements, and contemplating, almost with an air
of satisfaction, the sharp and glittering knife, which was so soon to
terminate all her earthly sufferings. Two of the executioners assisted
her by the elbows as she endeavored to descend from the cart. She
waited for no directions, but with a firm and yet not hurried tread,
ascended the steps of the scaffold. By accident, she trod upon the foot
of one of the executioners. "Pardon me!" she exclaimed, with all the
affability and grace with which she would have apologized to a courtier
in the midst of the social festivities of the Little Trianon. She
kneeled down, raised her eyes to heaven, and in a low but heart-rending
prayer, all forgetful of herself, implored God to protect her sister and
her helpless children. She was deaf to the clamor of the infuriate mob
around her. She was insensible to the dishonor of her own appearance,
with disheveled locks blinding her eyes, and with her faded garments
crumpled and disarranged by the rough jostling of the cart. She forgot
the scaffold on which she stood, the cords which bound her hands, the
blood-thirsty executioners by her side, the fatal knife gleaming above
her head. Her thoughts, true to the irrepressible instincts of maternal
love, wandered back to the dungeons from whence she had emerged, and
lingered with anguish around the pallets where her orphan, friendless,
persecuted children were entombed. Her last prayer was the prayer of
agony. She rose from her knees, and, turning her eyes toward the tower
of the Temple, and speaking in tones which would have pierce