eatly
moved to take any breakfast. They dared not speak to each other. They
took their work, and sat down to await the result of the fatal day in
silence.

{352}

Toward eleven o'clock the door opened. Armed men filled the room and
demanded Madame de Lamballe. The Princess put on a gown, bade adieu to
Madame de Tourzel, and was led to the great Force, where some municipal
officers, wearing their insignia, subjected the prisoners to a
pretended trial. In front of this tribunal stood executioners with
ferocious faces, who brandished bloody weapons. The atmosphere was
sickening: full of the steam of carnage, and the odors of wine and
blood. Madame de Lamballe fainted. When she recovered consciousness
she was interrogated: "Who are you?"--"Marie Louise, Princess of
Savoy."--"What is your rank?"--"Superintendent of the Queen's
household."--"Were you acquainted with the conspiracies of the court on
August 10?"--"I do not know that there were any conspiracies on August
10, but I know I had no knowledge of them."--"Swear liberty, equality,
hatred to the King, the Queen, and royalty."--"I will swear the first
two without difficulty; I cannot swear the last; it is not in my
heart." Here an assistant said in a whisper to Madame de Lamballe:
"Swear it! if you do not swear, you are a dead woman." The Princess
made no answer; she put her hands up to her eyes, covered her face with
them and made a step toward the wicket. The judge exclaimed: "Let some
one release Madame!" This phrase was the death signal. Two men took
the victim roughly by the arms, and made her walk over corpses. Hardly
had she crossed the threshold when she received a {353} blow from a
sabre on the back of her head, which made her blood flow in streams.
In the narrow passage leading from the rue Saint-Antoine to the Force,
and called the Priests' cul-de-sac, she was despatched with pikes on a
heap of dead bodies. Then they stripped off her clothes and exposed
her body to the insults of a horde of cannibals. When the blood that
flowed from her wounds, or that of the neighboring corpses, had soiled
the body too much, they washed it with a sponge, so that the crowd
might notice its whiteness better. They cut off her head and her
breasts. They tore out her heart, and of this head and this heart they
made horrible trophies. The pikes which bore them were lifted high in
air, and they went to carry around these excellent spoils of the
Revolution.

A