Chapter II: A Dinner at the Grange--A Pair of Owls (2)

Death then recounts some of his past achievements to prove his readiness to inflict punishment on the king.

Daniel, however, expressly forbids him to kill Baltassar, and gives him leave only to awaken him to a sense of coming woe and the fact that he is mortal.

This Death does by appearing to the king and showing him a small book lost by him some time before (_i.e._, the remembrance of his mortality, which he had forgotten), in which is written his debt to Death.

He leaves the terror-stricken monarch with an admonition to remember his obligation.

Thought, hovering between Vanity and Idolatry, soon, however, effaces the impression left by the terrible visitor.

The king and Thought, lulled by their combined flatteries, fall asleep, while Death enters and delivers the following monologue, which, as Mr. MacCarthy truly says, “belongs unquestionably to the deepest and most beautiful poetry that has ever flown from the pen of Calderon”:

DEATH. “Man the rest of slumber tries,
Never the reflection making
That, O God! asleep and waking,
Every day he lives and dies;
That a living corse he lies,
After each day’s daily strife,
Stricken by an unseen knife,
In brief lapse of life, not breath,
A repose which is not death;
But what is death teaches life:
Sugared poison ’tis, which sinks
On the heart, which it o’ercometh,
Which it hindereth and benumbeth.
And can a man, then, live who poison drinks?
’Tis forgetting, when the links
That gave life by mutual fretting
To the Senses, snap, or letting
The imprisoned Five go free,
They can hear not, touch, or see;
And can a man forget this strange forgetting?
It is frenzy, that which moves
Heart and eyes to taste and see
Joys and shapes that ne’er can be:
And can a man be found who frenzy loves?
’Tis a lethargy that proves
My best friend; in trust for me,
Death’s dull, drowsy weight bears he,
And, by failing limb and eye,
Teaches man the way to die:
And can a man, then, seek this lethargy?
’Tis a shadow, which is made
Without light’s contrasted aid,
Moving in a spectral way,
Sad, phantasmal foe of day:
And can a man seek rest beneath such shade?
Finally, ’tis well portrayed
As Death’s Image: o’er and o’er
Men have knelt its shrine before,
Men have bowed the suppliant knee,
All illusion though it be:
And can a man this Image, then, adore?
Since Baltassar here doth sleep,
Since he hath the poison drank,
Since he treads oblivion’s blank,
Since no more his pulses leap,
Since the lethargy is deep,
Since, in horror and confusion,
To all other sights’ exclusion,
He has seen the Image--seen
What this shade, this poison, mean,
What this frenzy, this illusion:
Since Baltassar sleepeth so,
Let him sleep, and never waken:
Be his body and soul o’ertaken
By the eternal slumber.”

(He draws his sword, and is about to kill him.)

Daniel rushes in and saves the sleeper, who is dreaming a mysterious vision, which is visibly represented to the spectators.

The king on awakening is captivated, as usual, by Idolatry, who proposes to him a magnificent feast, in which shall be used the sacred vessels carried away from Jerusalem.

The feast is prepared; the table is brought in, on which are displayed the sacred vessels; the attendants begin serving the banquet, while Thought plays the court-fool.

In the midst of the revelry Death enters, disguised as one of the servants, and, when the king calls for wine, presents him with one of the golden goblets from the table, with a mysterious aside referring to the Lord’s Supper, where the cup contains both death and life, as it is drunk worthily or unworthily.

The king rises and gives the toast: “For ever, Moloch, god of the Assyrians, live!”

A great clap of thunder is heard, darkness settles on the feast, and a fiery hand writes upon the wall the fatal “MANE, THECEL, PHARES.”

Idolatry, Vanity, and Thought in turn fail to interpret the mysterious words, and the first named suggests that Daniel should be summoned.[57]

The prophet comes and explains the hidden meaning of the words, declaring that God’s wrath has been aroused by the misuse of the sacred vessels, which, until the law of grace reigns on earth, foreshow the Blessed Sacrament.

Baltassar and his wives tremble at the solemn words. Thought, an expression of the reproaches of his master’s conscience, turns against the king, who laments the desertion of his friends in the hour of need.

Death, during this scene, has been approaching nearer and nearer, and now draws his sword and stabs the unhappy monarch, who cries:

“This is death, then!
Was the venom not sufficient
That I drank of?”

DEATH. “No; that venom
Was the death of the soul; the body’s
This swift death-stroke representeth.”

The king, struggling with Death, is forced to confess:

“He who dares profane God’s cup,
Him he striketh down forever;
He who sinfully receives
Desecrates God’s holiest vessel!”

These are his last words. Idolatry awakens from her dream, and longs to see the light of the law of grace now while the written law reigns.

Death declares that it is foreshadowed in Gedeon’s fleece, in the manna, in the honey-comb, in the lion’s mouth, and in the shew-bread.

DANIEL. “If these emblems
Show it not, then be it shown
In the full foreshadowing presence
Of the feast here now transformed
Into Bread and Wine--stupendous
Miracle of God; his greatest
Sacrament in type presented.”

The scene opens to the sound of solemn music; a table is seen arranged as an altar, with a monstrance and chalice in the middle, and two wax candles on each side.

The _auto_ closes with Idolatry’s declaration that she is transformed into _Latria_, and the usual personal address to the audience.

II. THE PAINTER OF HIS OWN DISHONOR.

We have already remarked that the _auto El Pintor de su Deshonra_ is a _replica_ of a secular play bearing the same title.

It will not be out of place to give a short analysis of the latter, premising that it is one of the greatest of Calderon’s tragedies.

In the first act the Governor of Gaeta welcomes to his residence his friend Don Juan Roca, whose young wife, Seraphine, soon becomes intimate with the governor’s daughter, Portia, to whom she reveals the secret that she has been ardently loved by Portia’s brother, Don Alvaro, whose love she has as ardently returned.

News, however, was received of his shipwreck and death, and she finally yielded to her father’s urgent requests, and gave her hand to Don Juan.

The unhappy lady faints while reciting her griefs, and Portia hastens for aid. At this moment a stranger enters, perceives the unconscious lady, and bends over her with an expression of the warmest interest. Seraphine opens her eyes, and with the cry “Alvaro!” faints again.

Her old lover, saved from the waves, has returned to find her another’s wife.

From this moment begins a struggle between love and duty, depicted with all the tenderness and power of which the poet was capable.

Seraphine attempts with all her strength to master her love for Alvaro, and tells him, with forced coolness, how much she is attached to her husband by duty and inclination.

During this interview a cannon is heard--the signal announcing the approaching departure of Don Juan’s ship. Seraphine withdraws to follow him to their home in Spain, and leaves Alvaro in a state of utter hopelessness.

The second act reveals to us Don Juan (an enthusiastic lover of art) in his home in Barcelona, painting his wife’s portrait.

The remembrance of the past seems banished from Seraphine’s heart, and everything indicates a state of peace and happiness.

Don Juan withdraws a moment, when a sailor enters the room.

It is Don Alvaro, who, unable to forget his love, has followed Seraphine to Barcelona. He overwhelms her with his affection; but she shows him so firmly and eloquently that his pleading is in vain that he in turn resolves to conquer his passion and leave her for ever.

He still lingers near, but makes no attempt to approach her again.

One day, during the Carnival, Don Juan’s villa takes fire. Seraphine is borne insensible from the house by her husband, who confides her to Don Alvaro, whom he does not, of course, recognize, and returns to help the others who are in danger.

Don Alvaro, meanwhile, is left with Seraphine in his arms. His love revives stronger than ever in the terrible temptation, and he bears the still insensible Seraphine to his ship, and makes sail with the greatest haste.

Don Juan does not return until the ship is under way, discovers too late that he has been deceived, and throws himself into the sea in order to overtake the fugitives.

In the last act we find Don Juan at Gaeta, disguised as an artist, in order to obtain more easily access into private houses, and discover who has stolen his wife.

He is introduced to Prince Urbino, who commissions him to paint the portrait of a beautiful woman whom he has seen at a neighboring forester’s house, which he visits in order to meet Portia secretly.

The same place has been chosen by Don Alvaro to conceal Seraphine, who is the beautiful lady who has attracted the prince’s attention.

Don Juan repairs to the appointed spot, and erects his easel near a window, through the blinds of which he can see, unnoticed, the fair one.

The artist discovers, with feelings which can be imagined, his wife asleep in the garden. She murmurs words which prove her innocence. But this cannot save her; she must be sacrificed to remove the stain on her husband’s honor.

Don Juan expresses his feelings in a most powerful soliloquy, when Alvaro enters and embraces the sleeping Seraphine. At that instant two shots are heard, and the innocent and guilty fall bleeding to the ground.

The _auto_ founded on the above play is, in the opinion of no less a critic than Wilhelm Val Schmidt, the first of its class, and withal much less technical than is usual with these plays.

The _dramatis personæ_ include the Artist, the World, Love, Lucifer, Sin, Grace, Knowledge, Nature (_i.e._, human nature at first in a state of innocence), Innocence, and the Will (_i.e._, free-will).

The first car represents a dragon, which opens and discloses Lucifer, whose first speech proves the trite remark about the devil quoting Scripture; for he immediately proceeds to cite Jeremias and David, who alluded to him as the dragon.

He then summons Sin, and repeats to her his partly-known history, which contains some singular ideas.

He was the favorite of the Father in his former home, where he saw, before the original existed, the portrait of so rare a beauty that, inflamed with love, and to prevent the Prince from marrying her, he rebelled, and, placing himself at the head of the other discontented spirits, was defeated and doomed to perpetual exile and darkness.

So far Sin is acquainted with the story; but from this point all is new to her.

The greatest of Lucifer’s sufferings arises from his envy of the Prince, who is all that is wise and lovely: a learned theologian, legislator, philosopher, physician, logician, astrologist, mathematician, architect--“witness the palace of the world”--geometrician, rhetorician, musician, and poet.

But none of these qualities so enrages and astonishes Lucifer as the Prince’s talent for painting. He has already been engaged six days on a landscape. At the beginning the ground of the canvas was so bare and rough that he only drew on it the outline in shadowy figures. The first day he gave it light; the second day he introduced heaven and earth, dividing the waters and the firmament; the third day, seeing the earth so arid and bare, he painted flowers in it and fruits, and the fourth day the sun and moon. He filled, the fifth day, the air and waters with birds and fishes; and this sixth day he has covered the landscape with various animals.

Nothing of all this astonishes Lucifer so much as the Prince’s intention to embody in a palpable form the ideal which was the cause of Lucifer’s fall.

The divine Artist has himself chosen the colors and selected clay and occult minerals, which Lucifer fears a breath may animate: “Since if a breath can dissipate dust, I suspect, I lament, I fear, that dust may live by the inspiration of a breath.”

Animated by this fear, Lucifer has summoned Sin to aid him in destroying this image, so that the Prince may be The Painter of his own Dishonor.

A palace appears, and near the entrance the painting on an easel. Lucifer and Sin retire; for the Artist, accompanied by the Virtues, comes to put a careful hand to his work.

Sin knows not where to conceal herself. Lucifer bids her hide in a cave in the bank of a stream.

Sin answers that she is afraid of the water, because she foresees that it is to be (in the water of baptism) the antidote to sin.

The flowers, grain, and vine all terrify her, before which, as symbols of some unknown sacrament, she reverently bows.

She at last conceals herself in a tree, which Lucifer calls from that moment _the tree of death_.

The Artist enters, Innocence bearing the palette, Knowledge the mall-stick, and Grace the brushes.

He declares his intention to show his power in the portrait his love wishes to paint, and asks the attendant Virtues to add their gifts to Human Nature.

He proceeds to work, while the Virtues call upon the sun, moon, etc., to praise the Lord.

The Artist finishes his work by breathing the breath of life into it. The picture falls, and in its place appears Human Nature, who expresses most vividly her wonder at her creation, and joins in the general anthem, “Bless the Lord.” Lucifer confesses that he and Sin are _de trop_, and they depart to seek some disguise in which to return and carry out their undertaking. While the chorus repeats the praises of the Lord, Human Nature naïvely asks, “How can I bless him, if I do not know him? Who will tell me who He is or who I am?”

The Artist advances and answers her question. Nature demands who _he_ is. “I am who am, and have been, and am to be; and since thou hast been created for Love’s spouse, let thy love be grateful.”

“What command dost thou lay on me, my Love? I will never break it.”

“All that thou seest here is thine; that tree alone is mine.”

Nature asks who can ever divert her love, and is answered, “Thy Free-will.”

“What new spirit and force was created in my new being by that word, which told me that there was something in me besides myself? Voice, tell me, who is Free-will.”

Free-will appears as a rustic, and answers, “I.”

Nature then proceeds to name the various objects about her, accompanying each name with some appropriate remark, and is led quite naturally to indulge in some boasting at her dominion over such a beautiful and varied kingdom.

This is the moment Lucifer and Sin select to appear in the disguise of rustics. The latter remains concealed in the tree; the former introduces himself to Human Nature as a gardener, and says very gallantly that he lost his last place on her account.

Nature hastens to turn a conversation becoming somewhat personal by asking what he is cultivating.

“That beautiful tree.”

“It is extremely lovely.”

“There is something more singular about it than being merely lovely.”

“What?”

“Earth, who brought it forth, can tell thee.”

“I am earth, since I was formed of earth; so I will tell the Earth to keep me no longer in suspense.”

“Then speak to her, and thou shalt see.”

“Mother Earth, what is this hidden mystery?”

SIN. “Eat, and thou shalt be as God.”

Then follow the Fall and a powerful scene depicting Nature’s confusion and grief, as she is dragged off by Satan as his slave, while Sin claims Free-will as her prey.

The Artist enters and finds Knowledge, Innocence, and Grace in tears; the latter informs him of the Fall.

He thus reproaches his creation for her ingratitude: “What more could I do for thee, my best design, than form thee with my own hands? I gave thee my image, a soul that cost thee nothing, and yet thou desertest me for my greatest enemy.”

He then pronounces the curse upon Mankind and the Serpent, and declares he will blot out the world, the scene of their sin.

The clouds break and the sea bursts its limits; the Earth trembles and struggles with the waves, and in agony calls on the Lord for mercy.

In the midst of this confusion of the elements Human Nature is heard crying for help.

LUCIFER. “Why callest thou for aid, if I, the only one whom it behooves to give it, delight in seeing thee annihilated?”

Sin also makes the same declaration. The World alone attempts to save its queen.

At last the Artist casts her a plank, saying, “Mortal, again see whom thou hast deserted, and for whom; since he whom thou hast offended saves thee, and he whom thou lovest abandons thee! One day thou wilt know of what this plank, fragment of a miraculous ark, is symbol.”

The World, Nature, and Free-will are saved; the latter enters, bound with Sin, who declares that Sin and Human Nature are so nearly the same that one cannot go anywhere without the other.

We have said anachronisms are frequent; the poet here even makes his characters jest about it.

HUMAN NATURE. “Since here there are no real persons, and Allegory can traverse centuries in hours, it seems to me that the salute the angels are singing to this celestial aurora declares in resounding words…”

MUSIC. “In heaven and on earth peace to man and glory to God.”

FREE-WILL. “The story has made a fine jump from the Creation to the Flood, and I think there is going to be another, if I understand that song aright--from the Deluge to the Nativity!”

The chant continues, to the infinite discomfort of Lucifer and Sin, who at last determine in their rage to disfigure Human Nature so that her Creator himself could not recognize her.

Lucifer holds her hands, while Sin brands upon her brow the sign of slavery.

Lucifer then commands the World to remain on guard, and let no one enter without careful scrutiny, for fear lest the Artist may attempt to avenge the wrong done him.

The Artist enters, accompanied by Divine Love.

They are soon discovered by the World, who exclaims: “Who goes there?”

“Friends.”

“Your name?”

“A Man.”

“And the World, the faithful sentinel of Sin, does not know how thou hast entered here?”

“I did not come that Sin should know me.”

“_I_ do not know thee.”

“So John will say.”

“By what door didst thou enter?”

“By that of Divine Love, who accompanies me.”

“What is thy office?”

“I was once an Artist in a certain allegory, and must still be the same.”

“Artist?”

“Yes, since I came to retouch a figure of mine which an error has blotted.”

“Since thou art a painter thou canst do me a favor.…”

“What is it?”

The World then informs him that there is a certain Spouse who has been carried away from her husband, and is now in the power of a Tyrant, who is endeavoring to force her to accompany him to another world, the seat of his rule.

The Artist weeps, because he remembers his own Spouse, whose fate is similar to that of this one.

The world begs the Artist to make a portrait of this fair disconsolate one, that he (the World) may wear it on his breast.

The Artist consents, and conceals himself in order to work unobserved.

The World goes in search of Human Nature, while the Artist looks about for some hiding-place. Love points to a cross near by, and says that as the first offence was committed in a tree, this one will witness his vengeance.

The Artist calls for his colors, and Love presents him with a box, in opening which his hands are stained a bloody red.

“Take this!”

“It is all carmine.”

“I have no other color.”

“Do not let it afflict thee, Love, that blood must retouch what Sin has blotted. The brushes!”

Love hands him three nails--“Here they are!”

“How sharp and cruel! What can be the canvas for such brushes!”

Love gives him a canvas in the shape of a heart--“a heart.”

“Of bronze?”

“Yes.”

“How I grieve to see it so hardened, when I intended to form in it a second figure! Give me the mall-stick.”

Love presents him with a small lance. “Here it is.”

“The point is steel! Less cruel instruments Innocence, Grace, and Knowledge once gave me!”

“Be not astonished if these are more cruel than those; for then thou didst paint as God, and now as Man!”

While the Artist is working Nature, Free-will, and Sin enter, and later Lucifer, who, wearied of Nature’s continual lamentation, comes to drag her to his realm.

ARTIST. “Why should I delay my vengeance, seeing them together? Give me, Love, the weapons which I brought for this occasion!”

“Thy voice is the lightning, this weapon only its symbol; but I deliver it to thee with sorrow!”

“When my offended honor is so deeply concerned?”

“I am Love, and _she_ is weeping; but I will direct my gaze to thy wrongs, and without fail shall hit the mark.”

“My hand cannot err, traitrous adulterers, who conspired against me; the honor of an insulted man obliges me to this! I am the Painter of his own Dishonor; die both at one stroke!” (Fires. Lucifer and Sin both fall.)

LOVE. “Thou hast hit Sin, and not Human Nature!”

The Artist answers that it cannot be said that his shot has failed, since by this tree Nature lives, and Lucifer and Sin are killed.

The Artist points to a fountain of seven streams, and the Virtues, and invites Human Nature to bathe in the blood from his side, and be restored to her original condition.

The _auto_ closes with an expression of gratitude from Nature, and the usual allusion to the Sacrament in whose honor the present festival is celebrated.

I AM THE DOOR.

“To him that knocketh it shall be opened.”

Truly, I see Thou art!--with nails hinged fast:
Yet faster barred and locked with bolts of love.
I, treasure seeking, through Thee would go past.
Than lock or hinges must I stronger prove?

“A knock will do’t.” A knock! Where durst I, Lord?
“Knock at my heart; there all my wealth is stored.”

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TEMPLE.

CONCLUDED.

While the so-called King of France was thus subjected to the fierce and brutal caprice of one man, there were thousands of loyal hearts beating in pity for him, and longing to liberate and crown him, even at the price of their blood. The faithful army of La Vendée was fighting for him, and with a courage and determination that caused some anxiety among the good patriots as to the possible issue of the campaign. The movement was held up to ridicule; the young prince was mockingly styled King of La Vendée. Nevertheless, the republicans were alarmed, and the hopes of the royalists were reviving. The Simons were discussing these matters one evening over the newspaper, when Simon, looking at the forlorn, broken-spirited little monarch, whose cause was thus creating strife and bloodshed far beyond his dungeon’s walls, exclaimed sneeringly: “I say, little wolf-cub, they talk of setting up the throne again, and putting thee in thy father’s place; what wouldst thou do to me if they made thee king?” The boy raised his dim blue eyes from the ground, where they were now habitually fixed, and replied: “I would forgive thee!” Mme. Simon, in relating this incident long after, said that even her husband seemed for a moment awed by the sublime simplicity of the answer.

They were both of them sick and tired of their office by this time; she of the cruel work it involved, he of the close confinement to which it condemned them. He tried to get released from his post, and after some fruitless efforts succeeded. On the 19th of January, 1794, they left the Temple. The patriot shoemaker died six months afterwards on the guillotine. He had no successor, properly speaking, in the Tower; in history he has neither successor nor predecessor; he stands alone, unrivalled and unapproachable, as a type of the tiger-man, a creature devoid of one humane, redeeming characteristic. Other men whose names have become bywords of cruelty or ferocious wickedness have at least had the excuse of some all-absorbing passion which, stifling reason and every better instinct of their nature, carried them on as by some overmastering impulse; but Simon could not plead even this guilty excuse. His was no mad delirium of passion, but a cold-blooded, deadly, undying, unrelenting cruelty in the execution of a murder that he had no motive in pursuing except as a means of adding a few coins more to his salary. He entered on his task of lingering assassination with deliberate barbarity; he was not stimulated by the sense of personal wrong, by a thirst for revenge, by any motive that could furnish the faintest thread of extenuation. He rose every morning and went to his victim as other men rise and go to their studies or their work. He devoted all his energies, all his instincts, to coolly inflicting torture on a beautiful, engaging, and innocent little child. No, happily for the world, he has no prototype in its history; nor, for the honor of humanity, has he ever found an apologist. He is perhaps the only monster of ancient or modern times who has never found a sceptic or a casuist to lift a voice in his behalf. Nero and Trajan, Queen Elizabeth and Louis XI., have had their apologists; nay, even Judas has found amongst the fatalists of some German school an infatuated fellow-mortal to attempt a defence of the indefensible; but no man has yet been known to utter a word of excuse for the brutal jailer of Louis XVII.

And yet his departure, though it rid the helpless captive of an active, ever-present barbarity, can hardly be said, except negatively, to have bettered his position. The Convention decreed that it was essential to the nation’s life and prosperity that the little Capet should be securely guarded; and as if the insane precautions hitherto used were not sufficient to secure a feeble, attenuated child, he was removed to a stronger and more completely isolated dungeon, where henceforth his waning life might die out quicker and more unheard of. There was only one window to the room, and this was darkened by a thick wooden blind, reinforced by iron bars outside. The door was removed, and replaced by a half-door with iron bars above; these bars, when unlocked, opened like a trap, and through this food was passed to the prisoner. The only light at night was from a lamp fastened to the wall opposite the iron grating.

Mme. Royale thus describes the state of her brother in this new abode, to which he was transferred--whether by accident or design we know not--on the anniversary of his father’s death, January 21: “A sickly child of eight years, he was locked and bolted in a great room, with no other resource than a broken bell, which he never rang, so greatly did he dread the people whom its sound would have brought to him; he preferred wanting any and every thing to calling for his persecutors. His bed had not been stirred for six months, and he had not strength to make it himself; it was alive with bugs and vermin still more disgusting. His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had no change of shirt or stockings; every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate about him and in his room; and during all that period nothing had been removed. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened, and the infectious smell of this horrid room was so dreadful that no one could bear it for a moment. He might indeed have washed himself--for he had a pitcher of water--and have kept himself somewhat more clean than he did; but overwhelmed by the ill-treatment he had received, he had not resolution to do so, and his illness began to deprive him of even the necessary strength. He never asked for anything, so great was his dread of Simon and his other keepers. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body, and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into a frightful atrophy. The length of time which he resisted this treatment proves how good his constitution must have originally been.”

While the boy-king was slowly telling away his remnant of miserable life in the dark solitude of the Tower, thousands were being daily immolated on the public places, where the guillotine, insatiable and indefatigable, despatched its cartloads of victims. On the 10th of May Mme. Elizabeth, the most revered and saintly of all the long roll of martyrs inscribed on that bloody page, was sacrificed with many other noble and interesting women, amongst them the venerable sister of M. de Malesherbes, the courageous advocate of the king. She was seventy-six years of age. By a refinement of barbarity the municipals who conducted the “batch” obliged Mme. Elizabeth to wait to see her twenty-five companions executed before laying her own head on the block. Each of them, as they left the tumbrel, asked leave to embrace her; she kissed them with a smiling face, and said a few words of encouragement to each. “Her strength did not fail her to the last,” says Mme. Royale, “and she died with all the resignation of the purest piety.”

Mme. Royale was henceforth left in perfect solitude like her brother. She thus describes her own and the Dauphin’s life after the departure of her beloved aunt, of whose death she was happily kept in ignorance for a long time: “The guards were often drunk; but they generally left my brother and me quiet in our respective apartments until the 9th Thermidor. My brother still pined in solitude and filth. His keepers never went near him but to give him his meals; they had no compassion on this unhappy child. There was one of the guards whose gentle manners encouraged me to recommend my brother to his attention; this man ventured to complain of the severity with which the boy was treated, but he was dismissed next day. I, at least, could keep myself clean. I had soap and water, and carefully swept out my room every day. I had no light.… They would not give me any more books, but I had some religious works and some travels, which I read over and over.”

The fall of Robespierre, which rescued so many doomed heads from the guillotine, and opened the doors of their prison, had no such beneficent effect on the fate of the two royal children. It gave rise, however, to some alleviation of their sufferings. Immediately on the death of his cowardly and “incorruptible” colleague, Barras visited the Tower, and dismissed the whole set of commissaries of the Commune, who were forthwith despatched to have their heads cut off next day, while a single guardian was appointed in their place.

Laurent was the man’s name. He had good manners, some education, and, better than all, a human heart. The lynxes of the Temple eyed him askance; he was not of their kin, this creole with the heart of a man, and they mistrusted him. It was not until two o’clock in the morning that they conducted him to the presence of his charge. He tells us that when he entered the ante-room of the dungeon he recoiled before the horrible stench that came from the inner room through the grated door-way. Good heavens! was this the outcome of the reign of brotherhood which talked so mightily of universal love and liberty? It was in truth the most forcible illustration of the gospel of Sans-culottism that the world had yet beheld. “Capet! Capet!” cried the municipals in a loud voice. But no answer came. More calling, with threats and oaths, at last brought out a feeble, wailing sound like the cry of some dying animal. But nothing more could threats, or even an attempt at coaxing, elicit. Capet would not move; would not come forth and show himself to the new tutor. Laurent took a candle, and held it inside the bars of the noxious cage; he beheld, crouching on a bed in the furthest corner of the dungeon, the body which was confided to his guardianship. Sickened with the sight, he turned away. There was no appliance at hand for forcing open the door or the grating. Laurent at once sent in an account of what he had seen, and demanded that this remnant of child-life, that he was appointed to watch over, should be examined by proper authority. The next day, July 30, some members of the Sûreté Générale came to the Tower. M. de Beauchesne tells us what they saw: “They called to him through the grating; no answer. They then ordered the door to be opened. It seems there were no means of doing it. A workman was called, who forced away the bars of the trap so as to get in his head, and, having thus got sight of the child, asked him why he did not answer. Still no reply. In a few minutes the whole door was broken down, and the visitors entered. Then appeared a spectacle more horrible than can be conceived--a spectacle which never again can be seen in the annals of a nation calling itself civilized, and which even the murderers of Louis XVI. could not witness without mingled pity and fright. In a dark room, exhaling a smell of death and corruption, on a crazy, dirty bed, a child of nine years old was lying prostrate, motionless, and bent up, his face livid and furrowed by want and suffering, and his limbs half covered with a filthy cloth and trowsers in rags. His features, once so delicate, and his countenance, once so lively, denoted now the gloomiest apathy--almost insensibility; and his blue eyes, looking larger from the meagreness of the rest of his face, had lost all spirit, and taken, in their dull immovability, a tinge of gray and green. His head and neck were eaten up (_rongés_) with purulent sores; his legs, arms, and neck, thin and angular, were unnaturally lengthened at the expense of his chest and body. His hands and feet were not human. A thick paste of dirt stuck like pitch over his temples, and his once beautiful curls were full of vermin, which also covered his whole body, and which, as well as bugs, swarmed in every fold of the rotten bedding, over which black spiders were running.… At the noise of forcing the door the child gave a nervous shudder, but barely moved, not noticing the strangers. A hundred questions were addressed him; he answered none of them. He cast a vague, wandering, unmeaning look at his visitors, and at this moment one would have taken him for an idiot. The food they had given him was still untouched; one of the commissioners asked him why he had not eaten it. Still no answer. At last the oldest of the visitors, whose gray hairs and paternal tone seemed to make an impression on him, repeated the question, and he answered in a calm but resolute tone: ‘Because I want to die!’ These were the only words which this cruel and memorable inquisition extracted from him.”

Barras, the stuttering, pleasure-loving noble of Provence, “a terror to all phantasms, being himself of the genus Reality”--Barras, who had stood, like a bewildered, shipwrecked man while the storm-wind was whirling blood-waves round about him, now enters and beholds the royal victim whom it has taken nearly eighteen months of Simon the Cordwainer’s treatment “to get rid of”--perishing, but still alive in his den of squalor, darkness, and fright. His knees were so swollen that his ragged trowsers had become painfully tight. Barras ordered them to be cut open, and found the joints “prodigiously swollen and livid.” One of the municipals, who had formerly been a surgeon, was permitted to dress the sores on the head and neck; after much hesitation a woman was employed to wash and comb the child, and at Laurent’s earnest remonstrance a little air and light were admitted into the damp room; the vermin were expelled as far as could be, an iron bed and clean bedding replaced the former horrors in which the boy had lain so many months, and the grated door was done away with. These were small mercies, after all, and to which the vilest criminal had a right. All the other rigors of his prison were maintained. He was still left to partial darkness and complete solitude. Laurent, after a while, wearied the municipals into giving him leave to take him occasionally for an airing on the leads. The indulgence was perhaps welcome, but the child showed no signs of pleasure in it; he never spoke or took the smallest notice of anything he saw. Once only, when on his way to the leads, he passed by the wicket which conducted to the rooms that his mother had occupied; he recognized the spot at once, gazed wistfully at the door, and, clinging to Laurent’s arm, made a sign for them to go that way. The municipal who was on guard at the moment saw what the poor little fellow meant, and told him he had mistaken the door; it was, he said, at the other side. But the child had guessed aright. The kind-hearted Laurent began soon to feel his own confinement, almost as solitary as the prince’s, more than he could bear. He petitioned to have some one to assist him in his duties, and, owing to some secret influence of the royalists, a man named Gomin, who was at heart devoted to their cause, was appointed. The only benefit which the young prisoner derived from the change of his jailers was that civility and cleanliness had replaced insolence and dirt. For the rest, he was still locked up alone, never seeing any one except at meal times, when the two guardians and a municipal were present, the former being often powerless to control the insulting remarks and gratuitous cruelty of the latter. So the wretched days dragged on, silent, monotonous, miserable. Meanwhile, Paris was breathing freely after the long night of Terror. The Fraternity of the Guillotine was well-nigh over, and the _Jeunesse dorée_ had flung away the red caps and the _Carmagnole_, and was disporting itself with a light heart in gaudy attire of the antique cut. Fair _citoyennes_ discarded the unbecoming and therefore, even to the most patriotic among them, odious costume of the republic, and decked themselves out in flowing Greek draperies, binding their hair with gold and silver fillets like Clytemnestra and Antigone, and replacing the _sabots_ of the people with picturesque sandals, clothing their naked feet only in ribbons, despite the biting cold of this memorable winter. The death-beacons one by one had been quenched, not by nimble hands, like the lights of the ballroom or the gay flame of the street, but in blood dashed freely over their lurid glare. Terrified men were emerging from their holes and hiding-places; nobles were returning from exile; there was a sudden flaming up of merriment, an effervescence of luxury, an intoxicating thirst for pleasure, a hunger to eat of the good things of life, of which the reign of _sans-culottism_ had starved them. There were gay gatherings in all ranks; in the highest the _bals des victimes_, where the guests wore a badge of crape on their arm, as a sign that they had lost a near relative on the guillotine--none others being admitted. So, while the waltzers spun round to the clang of brass music and in the blaze of wax-lights, and all the world was embracing and exchanging congratulations, like men escaped from impending death, the tragedy in the Tower drew to its end unheard and unheeded. The King of La Vendée ate his dinner of “_bouilli_ and dry vegetables, generally beans”; the same at eight o’clock for supper, when he was locked up for the night, and left unmolested till nine next morning. One day there came a rough, blustering man to the prison, who flung open the doors with much noise, and talked like thunder. His name was Delboy. He chanced to arrive at the dinner-time. “Why this wretched food?” cried the noisy visitor. “If _they_ were still at the Tuileries, I would help to starve them out; but here they are our prisoners, and it is unworthy of the nation to starve them. Why these blinds? Under the reign of equality the sun should shine for all. Why is he separated from his sister? Under the reign of fraternity why should they not see each other?” Then addressing the child in a gentler tone, he said, “Should you not like, my boy, to play with your sister? If you forget your origin, I don’t see why the nation should remember it.” He reminded the guardians that it was not the little Capet’s fault that he was his father’s son--it was his misfortune; he was now only “an unfortunate child,” and the “nation should be his mother.” The only advantage the unfortunate child derived from this strange visit was that the lamp of his dungeon was lighted henceforth at dark. Gomin asked this favor on the spot, and it was granted. The commissioners were continually changed--a circumstance which proved a frequent cause of suffering and annoyance to the captive, who was the victim of their respective tempers, often fierce and cruel as those of his jailers of the earlier days. These accumulated miseries were finally wearing out his little remnant of strength. The malady which for some time past gave serious alarm to his two kind-hearted friends, Laurent and Gomin, increased with sudden rapidity, and in the month of February, 1795, assumed a threatening character. He could hardly move from extreme weakness, and had lost all desire to do so. When he went for his airing, Laurent or Gomin had to carry him in their arms. He let them do so reluctantly; but he was now too apathetic to resist anything. The surgeon of the prison was called in, and certified that “the little Capet had tumors on all his joints, especially his knees; that it was impossible to extract a word from him; that he never would rise from his chair or his bed, and refused to take any kind of exercise.” This report brought a deputation of members of the Sûreté Générale, who were so horrified at the state of things they found that they drew up the following appeal to their colleagues: “For _the honor of the nation_, who knew nothing of these horrors; for that of the Convention, which was, in truth, also ignorant of them; and even for that of the guilty municipality of Paris itself, who knew all and was the cause of all these cruelties, we should make no public report, but only state the result in a secret meeting of the committee.” This confession is revolting enough; but it might find some shadow of excuse, if, after hiding the cruelties for the sake of shielding the wretches who had sanctioned them, these deputies had taken steps to repair the wrong-doing, and to alleviate the position of the victim; but, as far as the evidence goes, nothing of the sort was done.

The tomb-like solitude to which the young prince had so long been subjected, added to the chronic terror in which he had lived from the time of his coming under Simon’s tutelage, had induced him to maintain an obstinate, unbroken silence. He could not be persuaded to answer a question, to utter a word. Yet it was evident enough that this did not proceed from stupidity or insensibility, but that his faculties still retained much of their native vivacity and sensitiveness. Gomin was so timid by nature that, in spite of his affection for his little charge, he seldom ventured on any outward expression of sympathy, afraid he should be detected and made, like so many others, to pay the penalty of it. One day, however, that he chanced to be left quite alone with him, he felt safe to let his heart speak, and showed great tenderness to the child; the boy fixed a long, wistful look on his face, and then rose and advanced timidly to the door, his eyes still fastened on Gomin with an expression of entreaty too significant to be misunderstood. “No, no,” said Gomin, shaking his head reluctantly; “you know _that_ cannot be.” “_Oh! I must see her_,” cried the poor child. “_Oh! pray, pray let me see her just once before I die!_” Gomin made no answer but by his look of pity and regret, and, going up to the child, led him gently from the door. The young prince threw himself on the bed with a gesture of despair, and remained there, senseless and motionless, so long that his guardian at one moment, as he confessed afterwards, feared he was dead. Poor child! The longing to see his mother had of late taken the shape of a hope, and he had been busy in his mind as to how it could possibly be realized; this had been an opportunity, he thought, and the disappointment overwhelmed him. Gomin said that, for his part, the sight of the boy’s grief nearly broke his heart. The incident, he believed, hastened the crisis, that was now steadily advancing. A few days after this occurrence a new commissary came to inspect the prisoner, and, after eyeing him curiously, as if he had been a strange variety of animal, he said out loud to Laurent and Gomin, who were standing by, “That child has not six weeks to live!” Fearing the shock these words might cause the subject of them, the guardians ventured to say something to modify their meaning; the commissary turned on them, and with a savage oath repeated, “I tell you, citizens, in six weeks he will be an idiot, if he is not dead!” When he left the room, the young prince gazed after him with a mournful smile. The sentence, brutally delivered as it was, had no fears for him; presently a few teardrops stole down his cheeks, and he murmured, as if speaking to himself, “And yet I never did any harm to anybody.”

A new affliction now awaited him. The kind and faithful Laurent left him. His post in the Tower, repulsive from the first, had become utterly insupportable to him of late, and on the death of his mother he applied to be liberated from it. When he came to bid farewell to the unhappy child, whose lot he had endeavored to soften as far as his power admitted, the prince squeezed his hand affectionately, _looked_ his regret at him, but uttered no word.

Laurent was replaced by a man named Lasne, formerly a soldier in the old Gardes Françaises, now a house-painter. For the first few weeks after his arrival the young prince was mute to him, as he had been to his predecessor, until the latter’s persevering kindness had disarmed timidity and mistrust. A trifle at last broke the ice. Lasne was in the habit of talking to his little charge, making kindly remarks, or telling stories that he thought might amuse him, never waiting for any sign of response. One day he happened to tell him of something that occurred when he, Lasne, had been in the old guard, and, being on guard at the Tuileries, had seen the Dauphin reviewing a regiment of children which had been formed for his amusement, and of which he was colonel. The boy’s countenance beamed with a sudden ray of surprise and pleasure, and he exclaimed in a whisper, as if afraid of being overheard, “And didst thou see me with my sword?” Lasne answered that he had, and from this forth they were fast friends. Bolder, though scarcely more sympathizing, than either Laurent or Gomin, Lasne determined to apply at headquarters for some decisive change in the prince’s treatment. He induced his colleague to join him in signing a report to the effect that “the little Capet was indisposed.” This was inscribed on the Temple register; but no notice was taken, and in a few days they both again protested in stronger terms: “The little Capet is seriously indisposed.” No notice being taken of this, the brave men wrote a third time: “The life of little Capet is in danger!” This finally brought a response. M. Desault, one of the first physicians in Paris, was sent to visit the young prince. He had come too late, however; the malady which had carried off the elder Dauphin had taken too deep a hold on the child’s life to be now arrested or overcome. Nothing could induce the prince to answer a question or speak a word to the doctor or in his presence; and it was only after great difficulty, and at the earnest entreaties of his two guardians, that he consented to swallow the medicines prescribed. By degrees, however, as it always happened, the persistent kindness and sympathizing looks and words of M. Desault conquered his suspicions or timidity; and though he never plucked up courage to speak to him, the municipals being always present, he would take hold of the doctor’s coat, and thus express a desire for him to prolong his visit. This lasted three weeks.

Among the commissaries there was a M. Bellenger, an artist, who was deeply touched by the pitiable condition of the child, and one day, thinking to give him a moment’s diversion, he brought a portfolio of drawings, and showed them to him while waiting in his room for M. Desault to come. The novel amusement seemed to interest him very little. He looked on listlessly, as M. Bellenger turned over the sketches for his inspection; then, as the doctor did not appear, the artist said, “Sir, there is another sketch that I should have much pleasure in carrying away with me, if it were not disagreeable to you.” The deferential manner, coupled with the title “monsieur,” so long a foreign sound to the captive’s ear, startled and moved him. “What sketch?” he said, for the first time breaking silence. “Your features, if it were not disagreeable to you, it would give me great pleasure.” “Would it?” said the child and he smilingly acquiesced. M. Bellenger completed his sketch, and still no doctor appeared; he took leave of the prince, saying he would come at the same hour the following day. He did so; but M. Desault was again unpunctual. The time for his visit elapsed, and he neither came nor sent a message. The commissary suggested that some one should be despatched to inquire the reason of his absence; but even so simple a step as this Lasne and Gomin dared not venture on without direct orders. They were discussing what had best be done, when a new commissary arrived and satisfied all inquiries: “There is no need to send after M. Desault; he died yesterday.” This sudden death was the signal for the wildest conjectures. It was rumored that the physician had been bribed to poison the prince, and then in remorse had poisoned himself. In times like those such a report was eagerly accepted, fed as it was by the mystery which surrounded the inmate of the Tower, and the vague stories afloat concerning the character of the ill-omened dungeon and the people who now ruled there.