92, in the charge of
Potion, Mayor of Paris, and Santerre, the commandant-general. Twelve
Commissioners of the general council were to keep constant watch at the
Temple, which had been fortified by earthworks and garrisoned by
detachments of the National Guard, no person being allowed to enter
without permission from the municipality.
The Temple, formerly the headquarters of the Knights Templars in Paris,
consisted of two buildings,--the Palace, facing the Rue de Temple, usually
occupied by one of the Princes of the blood; and the Tower, standing
behind the Palace.
[Clery gives a more minute description of this singular building: "The
small tower of the Temple in which the King was then confined stood with
its back against the great tower, without any interior communication, and
formed a long square, flanked by two turrets. In one of these turrets
there was a narrow staircase that led from the first floor to a gallery on
the platform; in the other were small rooms, answering to each story of
the tower. The body of the building was four stories high. The first
consisted of an antechamber, a dining-room, and a small room in the
turret, where there was a library containing from twelve to fifteen
hundred volumes. The second story was divided nearly in the same manner.
The largest room was the Queen's bedchamber, in which the Dauphin also
slept; the second, which was separated from the Queen's by a small
antechamber almost without light, was occupied by Madame Royale and Madame
Elisabeth. The King's apartments were on the third story. He slept in
the great room, and made a study of the turret closet. There was a
kitchen separated from the King's chamber by a small dark room, which had
been successively occupied by M. de Chamilly and M. de Hue. The fourth
story was shut up; and on the ground floor there were kitchens of which no
use was made." --"Journal," p. 96.]
The Tower was a square building, with a round tower at each corner and a
small turret on one side, usually called the Tourelle. In the narrative
of the Duchesse d'Angouleme she says that the soldiers who escorted the
royal prisoners wished to take the King alone to the Tower, and his family
to the Palace of the Temple, but that on the way Manuel received an order
to imprison them all in the Tower, where so little provision had been made
for their reception that Madame Elisabeth slept in the kitchen. The royal
family were accompanied by the Princesse d
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