age, in a gloomy cell, where he was entirely excluded from any
communication with his aunt and sister. The two latter princesses
remained in the room from which the queen had been taken. They were,
however, in the most painful uncertainty respecting her fate. Their
jailers were commanded to give them no information whatever respecting
the external world. Their prison was a living tomb, in which they were
allowed to breathe, and that was all. The Princess Elizabeth had
surmised, from various little incidents, what had been the fate of the
queen, but she tried to cheer the young, and affectionate, and still
beautiful child with the hope that her mother yet lived, and that they
might meet again. Eight months of the most dreary captivity rolled
slowly away. It was winter, and yet they were allowed no fire to dispel
the gloom and the chill of their cell. They were deprived of all books.
They were not allowed the use of pens or paper. The long winter nights
came. In their cell there was but a few hours during which the rays of
the sun struggled faintly through the barred windows. Night, long,
dismal, impenetrable, like that of Egypt, enveloped them for fifteen
hours. They counted the strokes of the clocks in the distant churches.
They listened to the hum of the vast and mighty metropolis, like the
roar of the surf upon the shore. Reflections full of horror crowded upon
them. The king was beheaded. The queen was, they knew not where, either
dead or in the endurance of the most fearful sufferings. The young
dauphin was imprisoned by himself, and they knew only that the gentle,
affectionate, idolized child was exposed to every cruelty which
barbarism could inflict upon him. What was to be their own fate? Were
they to linger out the remnant of their days in this wretched captivity?
Would their inhuman jailers envy them the consolation they found in each
other's arms, and separate them? Were they also to perish upon the
guillotine, where nearly all whom they had loved had already perished?
Were they ever to be released? If so, what joy could there remain on
earth for them after their awful sufferings and bereavements? Woes, such
as they had endured, were too deep ever to be effaced from the mind.
Nearly eight months thus lingered slowly along, in which they saw only
brutal and insulting jailers, ate the coarsest food, and were clothed in
the unwashed and tattered garb of the prison. Time seemed to have
stopped its flight, and to hav