Yet when Simon was removed the poor young Prince’s condition became even worse.  His horrible loneliness induced an apathetic stupor to which any suffering would have been preferable.  “He passed his days without any kind of occupation; they did not allow him light in the evening.  His keepers never approached him but to give him food;” and on the rare occasions when they took him to the platform of the Tower, he was unable or unwilling to move about.  When, in November, 1794, a commissary named Gomin arrived at the Temple, disposed to treat the little prisoner with kindness, it was too late.  “He took extreme care of my brother,” says Madame Royale.  “For a long time the unhappy child had been shut up in darkness, and he was dying of fright.  He was very grateful for the attentions of Gomin, and became much attached to him.”  But his physical condition was alarming, and, owing to Gomin’s representations, a commission was instituted to examine him.  “The commissioners appointed were Harmond, Mathieu, and Reverchon, who visited ‘Louis Charles,’ as he was now called, in the month of February, 1795.  They found the young Prince seated at a square deal table, at which he was playing with some dirty cards, making card houses and the like,—­the materials having been furnished him, probably, that they might figure in the report as evidences of indulgence.  He did not look up from the table as the commissioners entered.  He was in a slate-coloured dress, bareheaded; the room was reported as clean, the bed in good condition, the linen fresh; his clothes were also reported as new; but, in spite of all these assertions, it is well known that his bed had not been made for months, that he had not left his room, nor was permitted to leave it, for any purpose whatever, that it was consequently uninhabitable, and that he was covered with vermin and with sores.  The swellings at his knees alone were sufficient to disable him from walking.  One of the commissioners approached the young Prince respectfully.  The latter did not raise his head.  Harmond in a kind voice begged him to speak to them.  The eyes of the boy remained fixed on the table before him.  They told him of the kindly intentions of the Government, of their hopes that he would yet be happy, and their desire that he would speak unreservedly to the medical man that was to visit him.  He seemed to listen with profound attention, but not a single word passed his lips.  It was an heroic principle that impelled that poor young heart to maintain the silence of a mute in presence of these men.  He remembered too well the days when three other commissaries waited on him, regaled him with pastry and wine, and obtained from him that hellish accusation against the mother that he loved.  He had learnt by some means the import of the act, so far as it was an injury to his mother.  He now dreaded seeing again three commissaries, hearing again kind words, and being treated again with fine promises.  Dumb as death itself he sat before them, and remained motionless as stone, and as mute.” [Thiers]