The cynical Hebert, being brought before the unfortunate Queen, dared at length to prefer the charges wrung from the young Prince.  He said that Charles Capet had given Simon an account of the journey to Varennes, and mentioned La Fayette and Bailly as having cooperated in it.  He then added that this boy was addicted to odious and very premature vices for his age; that he had been surprised by Simon, who, on questioning him, learned that he derived from his mother the vices in which he indulged.  Hebert said that it was no doubt the intention of Marie Antoinette, by weakening thus, early the physical constitution of her son, to secure to herself the means of ruling him in case he should ever ascend the throne.  The rumours which had been whispered for twenty years by a malicious Court had given the people a most unfavourable opinion of the morals of the Queen.  That audience, however, though wholly Jacobin, was disgusted at the accusations of Hebert.

[Can there be a more infernal invention than that made against the.  Queen by Hdbert,—­namely, that she had had an improper intimacy with her own son?  He made use of this sublime idea of which he boasted in order to prejudice the women against the Queen, and to prevent her execution from exciting pity.  It had, however, no other effect than that of disgusting all parties.—­Prudhomme.]

He nevertheless persisted in supporting them.

[Hebert did not long survive her in whose sufferings he had taken such an infamous part.  He was executed on 26th March, 1794.]

The unhappy mother made no reply.  Urged a new to explain herself, she said, with extraordinary emotion, “I thought that human nature would excuse me from answering such an imputation, but I appeal from it to the heart of every mother here present.”  This noble and simple reply affected all who heard it.

In the depositions of the witnesses, however, all was not so bitter for Marie Antoinette.  The brave D’Estaing, whose enemy she had been, would not say anything to inculpate her, and spoke only of the courage which she had shown on the 5th and 6th of October, and of the noble resolution which she had expressed, to die beside her husband rather than fly.  Manuel, in spite of his enmity to the Court during the time of the Legislative Assembly, declared that he could not say anything against the accused.  When the venerable Bailly was brought forward, who formerly so often predicted to the Court the calamities which its imprudence must produce, he appeared painfully affected; and when he was asked if he knew the wife of Capet, “Yes,” said he, bowing respectfully, “I have known Madame.”  He declared that he knew nothing, and maintained that the declarations extorted from the young Prince relative to the journey to Varennes were false.  In recompense for his deposition he was assailed with outrageous reproaches, from which he might judge what fate would soon be awarded to himself.