Fate seemed to have the brightest gifts in store for him.  On the 4th of June 1789, the dauphin, his elder brother, died at Meudon, and the young Louis-Charles succeeded to his honours.  At this time he was rather more than four years old, and is described as having a graceful and well-knit frame, his forehead broad and open, his eyebrows arched; his large blue eyes fringed with long chestnut lashes of angelic beauty; his complexion dazzlingly fair and blooming; his hair, of a dark chestnut, curled naturally, and fell in thick ringlets on his shoulders; and he had the vermilion mouth of his mother, and like her a small dimple on the chin.  In disposition he was exceedingly amiable, and was a great favourite both with his father and mother, who affectionately styled him their “little Norman.”

His happiness was destined to be very short-lived, for the murmurs of the Revolution could already be heard.  On the 20th of July, 1791, King Louis XVI., his family and court, fled from the disloyal French capital in the night, their intention being to travel in disguise to Montmedy, and there to join the Marquis de Bouille, who was at the head of a large army.  When they awoke the little dauphin, and began to dress him as a girl, his sister asked him what he thought of the proceeding.  His answer was, “I think we are going to play a comedy;” but never had comedy more tragic ending.  The royal party were discovered at Varennes, and brought back to the Tuileries amid the hootings and jeers of the mob.  “The journey,” says Lamartine, “was a Calvary of sixty leagues, every step of which was a torture.”  On the way the little girl whispered to her brother, “Charles, this is not a comedy.”  “I have found that out long since,” said the boy.  But he was brave, tender to his mother, and gravely courteous to the commissioner of the Assembly who had been deputed to bring them back.  “Sir,” he said, from his mother’s knee, “you ask if I am not very sorry to return to Paris.  I am glad to be anywhere, so that it is with mamma and papa, and my aunt and sister, and Madame de Tourzel, my governess.”

There soon came the wild scene in the Tuileries, and the sad appearance of the dethroned king in the Assembly, with its still more lamentable ending.  Louis XVI. was carried to the prison of the Temple.  This building had originally been a fortress of the Knights Templars.  In 1792, the year in which it received the captive monarch, it consisted of a large square tower, flanked at its angles by four round towers, and having on the north side another separate tower of less dimensions than the first, surmounted by turrets, and generally called the little tower.  It was in this little tower that the royal family of France were located by the commune of Paris.  Here the king spent his time in the education of his son, while the best historian of the boy says he devoted himself to comforting his parents:  “Here he was happy to live, and he was only turned to grief by the tears which sometimes stole down his mother’s cheeks.  He never spoke of his games and walks of former days; he never uttered the name of Versailles or the Tuileries; he seemed to regret nothing.”