His disease now made rapid progress, and Gomin and Lasne, superintendents of the Temple, thinking it necessary to inform the Government of the melancholy condition of their prisoner, wrote on the register:  “Little Capet is unwell.”  No notice was taken of this account, which was renewed next day in more urgent terms:  “Little Capet is dangerously ill.”  Still there was no word from beyond the walls.  “We must knock harder,” said the keepers to each other, and they added, “It is feared he will not live,” to the words “dangerously ill.”  At length, on Wednesday, 6th May, 1795, three days after the first report, the authorities appointed M. Desault to give the invalid the assistance of his art.  After having written down his name on the register he was admitted to see the Prince.  He made a long and very attentive examination of the unfortunate child, asked him many questions without being able to obtain an answer, and contented himself with prescribing a decoction of hops, to be taken by spoonfuls every half-hour, from six o’clock in the morning till eight in the evening.  On the first day the Prince steadily refused to take it.  In vain Gomin several times drank off a glass of the potion in his presence; his example proved as ineffectual as his words.  Next day Lasne renewed his solicitations.  “Monsieur knows very well that I desire nothing but the good of his health, and he distresses me deeply by thus refusing to take what might contribute to it.  I entreat him as a favour not to give me this cause of grief.”  And as Lasne, while speaking, began to taste the potion in a glass, the child took what he offered him out of his hands.  “You have, then, taken an oath that I should drink it,” said he, firmly; “well, give it me, I will drink it.”  From that moment he conformed with docility to whatever was required of him, but the policy of the Commune had attained its object; help had been withheld till it was almost a mockery to supply it.

The Prince’s weakness was excessive; his keepers could scarcely drag him to the, top of the Tower; walking hurt his tender feet, and at every step he stopped to press the arm of Lasne with both hands upon his breast.  At last he suffered so much that it was no longer possible for him to walk, and his keeper carried him about, sometimes on the platform, and sometimes in the little tower, where the royal family had lived at first.  But the slight improvement to his health occasioned by the change of air scarcely compensated for the pain which his fatigue gave him.  On the battlement of the platform nearest the left turret, the rain had, by perseverance through ages, hollowed out a kind of basin.  The water that fell remained there for several days; and as, during the spring of 1795, storms were of frequent occurrence, this little sheet of water was kept constantly supplied.  Whenever the child was brought out upon the platform, he saw a little troop of sparrows, which used to come to drink and bathe in this reservoir.  At first