the forests to be
devoured by congenial wolves. Lanjuinais,[6] whom the decree of the
Convention had identified with them, but who, even in the moments of the
greatest excitement, had kept himself clear of their wickedness and
crimes, was the only one of the whole body who completely eluded the rage
of his enemies. The rest, with Madame Roland, the first prompter of deeds
of blood, languished in their well-deserved prisons till the close of
autumn, when they all perished on the same scaffold to which they had sent
their innocent sovereign.[7]

But it may be that Marie Antoinette never learned their fall; though that
if she had, pity would at least have mingled with, if it had not
predominated over, her natural exultation, she gave a striking proof in
her conduct toward one from whom she had suffered great and constant
indignities. From the time that her own attendants were dismissed, the
only person appointed to assist Clery in his duties were a man and woman
named Tison, chosen for that task on account of their surly and brutal
tempers, in which the wife exceeded her husband. Both, and especially the
woman, had taken a fiendish pleasure in heaping gratuitous insults on the
whole family; but at last the dignity and resignation of the queen
awakened remorse in the woman's heart, which presently worked upon her to
such a degree that she became mad. In the first days of her frenzy she
raved up and down the courtyard declaring herself guilty of the queen's
murder. She threw herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, imploring her
pardon; and Marie Antoinette not only raised her up with her own hand, and
spoke gentle words of forgiveness and consolation to her, but, after she
had been removed to a hospital, showed a kind interest in her condition,
and amidst all her own troubles found time to write a note to express her
anxiety that the invalid should have proper attention.[8]

But very soon a fresh blow was struck at the hapless queen which made her
indifferent to all else that could happen, and even to her own fate, of
which it may be regarded as the precursor. At ten o'clock on the 3d of
July, when the little king was sleeping calmly, his mother having hung a
shawl in front of his bed to screen his eyes from the light of the candle
by which she and Elizabeth were mending their clothes, the door of their
chamber was violently thrown open, and six commissioners entered to
announce to the queen that the Convention had ordered the r