She was dragged before Hebert, one of the foulest of the Jacobin crew, who had taken his seat at the gate of the prison to preside over the trials, as they were called, of the prisoners in La Force.  “Swear,” said he, “devotion to liberty and to the nation, and hatred to the king and queen, and you shall live.”  “I will take the first oath,” she replied, “but the second never; it is not in my heart.  The king and queen I have ever loved and honored.”  Almost before she had finished speaking she was pushed into the gate-way.  One ruffian struck her from behind with his sabre.  She fell.  They tore her into pieces.  A letter of the queen’s fell from her hair, in which she had hidden it.  The sight of it redoubled the assassins’ fury.  They stuck her head on a pike, and carried it in triumph to the Palais Royal to display it to D’Orleans, who was feasting with some of the companions of his daily orgies, and then proceeded to the Temple to brandish it before the eyes of the queen.

It was about three o’clock.[4] Dinner had just been removed, and the king and queen were sitting down to play backgammon, when horrid shouts were heard in the street.  One of the soldiers on guard in the room, who had not yet laid aside every feeling of humanity, closed the window and even drew the curtain.  Another of different temper insisted that Louis should come to the window and show himself.  As the uproar increased, the queen rose from her seat, and the king asked what was the matter.  “Well,” said the man, “since you wish to know, they want to show you the head of Madame de Lamballe.”  No event that had yet occurred had struck the queen with such anguish.  The uproar increased.  Those who bore the head had wished even to force the doors, and bring their trophy, still bleeding, into the very room where the royal family were, and were only prevented by a compromise which permitted them to parade it round their tower in triumph.  As the shouts died away, Petion’s secretary arrived with a small sum of money which had been issued for the king’s use.  He noticed that the queen stood all the time that he was in the room, and fancied she assumed that attitude out of respect to the mayor.  She had never stirred since she had heard of the princess’s death, but had stood rooted, as it were, to the ground, stupefied and speechless with horror and anguish.  It was long before she could be restored; and all through the night the rest of the princesses, if at least they could have slept, was broken by her sobs, which never ceased.

As time passed on, the prospects of the unhappy prisoners became still more gloomy.  On the 21st of September the Convention met, and its first act was to abolish royalty and declare the government a republic, and an officer was instantly sent to make proclamation of the event under the Temple walls; and, as if the establishment of a republic authorized an increase of insolence on the part of the guards of the prisoners, the insults to which they were subjected grew more