ye: the soldiers puffed their tobacco-smoke in the
queen's face as she passed, or placed their seats in the passages so much
in her way that she could hardly avoid stumbling over their legs as she
went down to the garden. Sometimes they even assailed her with direct
abuse, calling her the assassin of the people, who in their turn would
assassinate her. More than once the whole family had to submit to a
personal search, and to empty their pockets, when the officers who made
the search carried off whatever they chose to term suspicious, especially
their knives and scissors, so that, when at work, the queen and princess
were forced to bite off the threads with their teeth. And amidst all this
misery no one ever heard Marie Antoinette utter a word to lament her own
fate, or to ask pity for herself. She mourned over her husband's fall; she
pitied Elizabeth, to whom malice itself could not impute a share in the
wrongs of which Danton and Vergniaud had taught the people to complain.
Most of all did she bewail the ruined prospects of her son; and more than
once she brought tears into Clery's eyes by the earnest tenderness with
which she implored him to provide for the safety of the noble child after
his parents should have been destroyed.

The insults increased, each being an additional omen of the future. The
most painful injuries were reserved for the queen. Toward the end of
October the dauphin was removed from her apartment to that of the king,
that she might thus be deprived of the comfort of ministering to his daily
wants. But Louis himself was not spared. One day an order came down to
deprive him of his sword; on another he was stripped of his different
decorations and orders of knighthood. The system of espial, too, was
carried out with increased severity. Their linen, when it came hack from
the washer-woman, and even their washing-bills, were held to the fire to
see if any invisible ink had been employed to communicate with them. Their
loaves and biscuits were cut asunder lest they should contain notes. The
end was approaching. A week or two later the king was removed to another
tower, and was only permitted to see his family during a certain portion
of the day. At last it was determined to bring him to trial. On the 11th
of December he was suddenly informed that he was to be brought before the
Convention; and from that day forth he was cut off from all intercourse
with his family, even his wife being forbidden to see or