Marie Antoinette — Complete eBook

Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 574 pages of information about Marie Antoinette — Complete.

Marie Antoinette — Complete eBook

Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 574 pages of information about Marie Antoinette — Complete.

Gendarmes were to mount guard incessantly at the door of her prison, and they were expressly forbidden to answer anything that she might say to them.

That wretch Hebert, the deputy of Chaumette, and editor of the disgusting paper Pere Duchesne, a writer of the party of which Vincent, Ronsin, Varlet, and Leclerc were the leaders—­Hebert had made it his particular business to torment the unfortunate remnant of the dethroned family.  He asserted that the family of the tyrant ought not to be better treated than any sans-culotte family; and he had caused a resolution to be passed by which the sort of luxury in which the prisoners in the Temple were maintained was to be suppressed.  They were no longer to be allowed either poultry or pastry; they were reduced to one sort of aliment for breakfast, and to soup or broth and a single dish for dinner, to two dishes for supper, and half a bottle of wine apiece.  Tallow candles were to be furnished instead of wag, pewter instead of silver plate, and delft ware instead of porcelain.  The wood and water carriers alone were permitted to enter their room, and that only accompanied by two commissioners.  Their food was to be introduced to them by means of a turning box.  The numerous establishment was reduced to a cook and an assistant, two men-servants, and a woman-servant to attend to the linen.

As soon as this resolution was passed, Hebert had repaired to the Temple and inhumanly taken away from the unfortunate prisoners even the most trifling articles to which they attached a high value.  Eighty Louis which Madame Elisabeth had in reserve, and which she had received from Madame de Lamballe, were also taken away.  No one is more dangerous, more cruel, than the man without acquirements, without education, clothed with a recent authority.  If, above all, he possess a base nature, if, like Hebert, who was check-taker at the door of a theatre, and embezzled money out of the receipts, he be destitute of natural morality, and if he leap all at once from the mud of his condition into power, he is as mean as he is atrocious.  Such was Hebert in his conduct at the Temple.  He did not confine himself to the annoyances which we have mentioned.  He and some others conceived the idea of separating the young Prince from his aunt and sister.  A shoemaker named Simon and his wife were the instructors to whom it was deemed right to consign him for the purpose of giving him a sans-cullotte education.  Simon and his wife were shut up in the Temple, and, becoming prisoners with the unfortunate child, were directed to bring him up in their own way.  Their food was better than that of the Princesses, and they shared the table of the municipal commissioners who were on duty.  Simon was permitted to go down, accompanied by two commissioners, to the court of the Temple, for the purpose of giving the Dauphin a little exercise.

Hebert conceived the infamous idea of wringing from this boy revelations to criminate his unhappy mother.  Whether this wretch imputed to the child false revelations, or abused his, tender age and his condition to extort from him what admissions soever he pleased, he obtained a revolting deposition; and as the youth of the Prince did not admit of his being brought before the tribunal, Hebert appeared and detailed the infamous particulars which he had himself either dictated or invented.

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Marie Antoinette — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.