ISON, vol. iii., p. 172.]

The severity with which the prisoners were treated was carried into every
detail of their life. The officers who guarded them took away their
chessmen and cards because some of them were named kings and queens, and
all the books with coats of arms on them; they refused to get ointment for
a gathering on Madame Elisabeth's arm; they, would not allow her to make a
herb-tea which she thought would strengthen her niece; they declined to
supply fish or eggs on fast-days or during Lent, bringing only coarse fat
meat, and brutally replying to all remonstances, "None but fools believe
in that stuff nowadays." Madame Elisabeth never made the officials
another request, but reserved some of the bread and cafe-au-lait from her
breakfast for her second meal. The time during which she could be thus
tormented was growing short.

On 9th May, 1794, as the Princesses were going to bed, the outside bolts
of the door were unfastened and a loud knocking was heard. "When my aunt
was dressed," says Madame Royale, "she opened the door, and they said to
her, 'Citoyenne, come down.'--'And my niece?'--'We shall take care of her
afterwards.' She embraced me, and to calm my agitation promised to return.
'No, citoyenne,' said the men, 'bring your bonnet; you shall not return.'
They overwhelmed her with abuse, but she bore it patiently, embracing me,
and exhorting me to trust in Heaven, and never to forget the last commands
of my father and mother."

Madame Elisabeth was then taken to the Conciergerie, where she was
interrogated by the vice-president at midnight, and then allowed to take
some hours rest on the bed on which Marie Antoinette had slept for the
last time. In the morning she was brought before the tribunal, with
twenty-four other prisoners, of varying ages and both sexes, some of whom
had once been frequently seen at Court.

"Of what has Elisabeth to complain?" Fouquier-Tinville satirically asked.
"At the foot of the guillotine, surrounded by faithful nobility, she may
imagine herself again at Versailles."

"You call my brother a tyrant," the Princess replied to her accuser; "if
he had been what you say, you would not be where you are, nor I before
you!"

She was sentenced to death, and showed neither surprise nor grief. "I am
ready to die," she said, "happy in the prospect of rejoining in a better
world those whom I loved on earth."

On being taken to the room where those condemned to suffer at th