ce. After supper the King again
urged his wish to see his family. They answered that they must await the
decision of the Convention. While I was undressing him the King said, 'I
was far from expecting all the questions they put to me.' He lay down
with perfect calmness. The order for my removal during the night was not
executed." On the King's return to the Temple being known, "my mother
asked to see him instantly," writes Madame Royale. "She made the same
request even to Chambon, but received no answer. My brother passed the
night with her; and as he had no bed, she gave him hers, and sat up all
the night in such deep affliction that we were afraid to leave her; but
she compelled my aunt and me to go to bed. Next day she again asked to
see my father, and to read the newspapers, that she might learn the course
of the trial. She entreated that if she was to be denied this indulgence,
his children, at least, might see him. Her requests were referred to the
Commune. The newspapers were refused; but my brother and I were to be
allowed to see my father on condition of being entirely separated from my
mother. My father replied that, great as his happiness was in seeing his
children, the important business which then occupied him would not allow
of his attending altogether to his son, and that his daughter could not
leave her mother."

[During their last interview Madame Elisabeth had given Clery one of her
handkerchiefs, saying, "You shall keep it so long as my brother continues
well; if he becomes ill, send it to me among my nephew's things."]

The Assembly having, after a violent debate, resolved that Louis XVI.
should have the aid of counsel, a deputation was sent to the Temple to ask
whom he would choose. The King named Messieurs Target and Tronchet. The
former refused his services on the ground that he had discontinued
practice since 1785; the latter complied at once with the King's request;
and while the Assembly was considering whom to, nominate in Target's
place, the President received a letter from the venerable Malesherbes,

[Christian Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, an eminent French
statesman, son of the Chancellor of France, was born at Paris in 1721. In
1750 he succeeded his father as President of the Court of Aids, and was
also made superintendent of the press. On the banishment of the
Parliaments and the suppression of the Court of Aids, Malesherbes was
exiled to his country-seat. In 17