princess were
too wretched to say much. Louis wept when he announced to them how short
was the time which he had to live, but his tears were those of pity for
the desolation of those he loved, and not of fear for himself. He was
even, in some sense, a willing victim, for, as he told them, it had been
proposed to save him by appealing to the primary Assemblies of the nation;
but he had refused his consent to a step which must throw the whole
country into confusion, and might be the cause of civil war. He would
rather die than risk the bringing of such calamities on his people. He
even sought to comfort the queen by making some excuses for the monsters
who had condemned him; and his last words to his family were an entreaty
to forgive them; to his son, an injunction never to seek to revenge his
death, even, if some change of fortune should enable him to do so.

The queen said nothing, but sat clinging to him in speechless agony. At
last he begged them to retire, that he might seek rest to prepare himself
for the morrow; and then she spoke, to beg that at least they might meet
again the next morning. "Yes," said he, "at eight o'clock." "Why not at
seven?" asked she. "Well, then, at seven." But, after she had left him he
determined to avoid this second meeting, not so much because he feared its
unnerving himself, but because he felt that the second parting must be too
terrible for her.

When she returned to her own chamber she had scarcely strength left to
place the dauphin in his bed. She threw herself, dressed as she was, on
her own bed, where her sister-in-law and daughter heard her, as the little
princess describes her state, "shivering with cold and grief the whole
night long.[7]"

Even if she could have slept, her rest would soon have been disturbed by
the movement of troops, the beating of the drums, and the heavy roll of
the cannon passing through the street. For the miscreants who bore sway in
the city knew well that the crime which they were about to commit was
viewed with horror by the great majority of the nation, and even of the
Parisians, and to the last moment were afraid of a rescue. But no one
could interpose between Louis and his doom; and the next intelligence of
him that reached his wife, who was waiting the whole morning in painful
anxiety for the summons to see him once more, was that he had perished
beneath the fatal guillotine, and that she was a widow.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

The Queen is refuse