moved with noiseless tread through its spacious corridors, and
their matins and vespers had vibrated along the stone arches of this
melancholy pile. But now weeds choked its court-yard, and no sounds were
heard in its deserted apartments but the shrieking of the wind as it
rushed through the grated windows and whistled around the angles of the
towers. The shades of night were adding to the gloom of this wretched
abode as the captives were led into its deserted and unfurnished cells.
It was after midnight before the rooms for their imprisonment were
assigned to them. It was a night of Egyptian darkness. Soldiers with
drawn swords guarded them, as, by the light of a lantern, they picked
their way through the rank weeds of the castle garden, and over piles of
rubbish, to a stone tower, some thirty feet square and sixty feet high,
to whose damp, cheerless, and dismal apartments they were consigned.
"Where are you conducting us?" inquired a faithful servant who had
followed the fortunes of his royal master. The officer replied, "Thy
master has been used to gilded roofs, but now he will see how the
assassins of the people are lodged."

[Illustration: THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE.]

Madame Elizabeth was placed in a kind of kitchen, or wash-room, with a
truckle bed in it, on the ground floor. The second floor of the Tower
was assigned to the attendants of the household. One common wooden
bedstead and a few old chairs were the only furniture of the room. The
third floor was assigned to the king, and queen, and the two children.
A footman had formerly slept in the room, and had left suspended
upon the walls some coarse and vulgar prints. The king, immediately
glancing at them, took them down and turned their faces to the wall,
exclaiming, "I would not have my daughter see such things." The king
and the children soon fell soundly asleep; but no repose came to the
agitated mind of Maria Antoinette. Her lofty and unbending spirit felt
these indignities and atrocities too keenly. She spent the night in
silent tears, and indulging in the most gloomy forebodings of the fate
which yet awaited them.

The morning sun arose, but to show still more clearly the dismal
aspect of the prison. But few rays could penetrate the narrow windows
of the tower, and blinds of oaken plank were so constructed that the
inmates could only look out upon the sky. A very humble breakfast was
provided for them, and then they began to look about to see what
resou