In November the King and all the family had feverish colds, and Clery had an attack of rheumatic fever.  On the first day of his illness he got up and tried to dress his master, but the King, seeing how ill he was, ordered him to lie down, and himself dressed the Dauphin.  The little Prince waited on Clery all day, and in the evening the King contrived to approach his bed, and said, in a low voice, “I should like to take care of you myself, but you know how we are watched.  Take courage; tomorrow you shall see my doctor.”  Madame Elisabeth brought the valet cooling draughts, of which she deprived herself; and after Clery was able to get up, the young Prince one night with great difficulty kept awake till eleven o’clock in order to give him a box of lozenges when he went to make the King’s bed.

On 7th December a deputation from the Commune brought an order that the royal family should be deprived of “knives, razors, scissors, penknives, and all other cutting instruments.”  The King gave up a knife, and took from a morocco case a pair of scissors and a penknife; and the officials then searched the room, taking away the little toilet implements of gold and silver, and afterwards removing the Princesses’ working materials.  Returning to the King’s room, they insisted upon seeing what remained in his pocket-case.  “Are these toys which I have in my hand also cutting instruments?” asked the King, showing them a cork-screw, a turn-screw, and a steel for lighting.  These also were taken from him.  Shortly afterwards Madame Elisabeth was mending the King’s coat, and, having no scissors, was compelled to break the thread with her teeth.

“What a contrast!” he exclaimed, looking at her tenderly.  “You wanted nothing in your pretty house at Montreuil.”

“Ah, brother,” she answered, “how can I have any regret when I partake your misfortunes?”

The Queen had frequently to take on herself some of the humble duties of a servant.  This was especially painful to Louis XVI. when the anniversary of some State festival brought the contrast between past and present with unusual keenness before him.

“Ah, Madame,” he once exclaimed, “what an employment for a Queen of France!  Could they see that at Vienna!  Who would have foreseen that, in uniting your lot to mine, you would have descended so low?”

“And do you esteem as nothing,” she replied, “the glory of being the wife of one of the best and most persecuted of men?  Are not such misfortunes the noblest honours?”—­[Alison’s “History of Europe,” vol. ii., p. 299.]

Meanwhile the Assembly had decided that the King should be brought to trial.  Nearly all parties, except the Girondists, no matter how bitterly opposed to each other, could agree in making him the scapegoat; and the first rumour of the approaching ordeal was conveyed to the Temple by Clery’s wife, who, with a friend, had permission occasionally to visit him.  “I did not know how to announce this