In the course of the month the rigour of their captivity was much increased.  The Commune ordered that they should only have one room; that Tison (who had done the heaviest of the household work for them, and since the kindness they showed to his insane wife had occasionally given them tidings of the Dauphin) should be imprisoned in the turret; that they should be supplied with only the barest necessaries; and that no one should enter their room save to carry water and firewood.  Their quantity of firing was reduced, and they were not allowed candles.  They were also forbidden to go on the leads, and their large sheets were taken away, “lest—­notwithstanding the gratings!—­they should escape from the windows.”

On 8th October, 1793, Madame Royale was ordered to go downstairs, that she might be interrogated by some municipal officers.  “My aunt, who was greatly affected, would have followed, but they stopped her.  She asked whether I should be permitted to come up again; Chaumette assured her that I should.  ‘You may trust,’ said he, ’the word of an honest republican.  She shall return.’  I soon found myself in my brother’s room, whom I embraced tenderly; but we were torn asunder, and I was obliged to go into another room.—­[This was the last time the brother and sister met] . . .  Chaumette then questioned me about a thousand shocking things of which they accused my mother and aunt; I was so indignant at hearing such horrors that, terrified as I was, I could not help exclaiming that they were infamous falsehoods.

“But in spite of my tears they still pressed their questions.  There were some things which I did not comprehend, but of which I understood enough to make me weep with indignation and horror . . . .  They then asked me about Varennes, and other things.  I answered as well as I could without implicating anybody.  I had always heard my parents say that it were better to die than to implicate anybody.”  When the examination was over the Princess begged to be allowed to join her mother, but Chaumette said he could not obtain permission for her to do so.  She was then cautioned to say nothing about her examination to her aunt, who was next to appear before them.  Madame Elisabeth, her niece declares, “replied with still more contempt to their shocking questions.”

The only intimation of the Queen’s fate which her daughter and her sister-in-law were allowed to receive was through hearing her sentence cried by the newsman.  But “we could not persuade ourselves that she was dead,” writes Madame Royale.  “A hope, so natural to the unfortunate, persuaded us that she must have been saved.  For eighteen months I remained in this cruel suspense.  We learnt also by the cries of the newsman the death of the Duc d’Orleans.