that their strength should not be thus worn-out
in grief, and he said that he needed some hours of rest and stillness.
He promised that the family should come to him in the morning: and they
therefore left him at a quarter past ten, having spent an hour and
three-quarters with him. He told Clery that he never intended to keep
this promise, and should spare them and himself the affliction of such
an interview. The queen chose to put Louis to bed, as usual; but had
hardly strength to do it. She then threw herself, dressed, upon her own
bed, where the princesses heard her shivering and sobbing with cold and
grief, all night long. The whole family were dressed by six, in
expectation of being sent for by the king; and when the door opened, in
a quarter of an hour, they thought the summons was come; but it was only
an attendant, looking for a prayer-book, as a priest was going to say
mass in the king's apartment. Then they waited hour after hour, and do
not seem to have suspected that the king would not keep his promise. At
a little after ten, the firing of the artillery, and the shouts in the
streets of "Long live the Republic," told them but too plainly that all
was over.

The melancholy life they led went on through the rest of the winter and
spring with little variety. The parapet of the leads was raised, and
every chink stopped up, to prevent the family seeing anything, or being
seen when they walked; so that his daily exercise could have been but
little of an amusement to the poor boy. On the 25th of March, he was
snatched up from sleep, in the middle of the night, in order that his
bed might be searched, as it was believed that his mother and aunt
carried on a correspondence with people without, by some secret means.
Nothing was found in Louis's bed; and only a tradesman's address, and a
stick of sealing-wax, in any of the apartments. The princesses
certainly contrived to conceal some pencils; for they had some remaining
in the following October. While the king was separated from them, they
corresponded with him by putting small notes into the middle of balls of
cotton, which were found by Clery in the linen-press, occasionally, and
which would hardly have excited any suspicion if they had been seen
there by the most watchful of the gaolers. It is probable that the
princesses communicated by the same method with people out of doors,
when their linen went out or was brought in. It certainly appears that
the