Sometimes the gardeners
who worked there hurried up to join them in this dance, and to
encircle the prisoners in their wild evolutions. One of these people
displayed his sickle to the king one day, and swore that he would
cut off the head of the queen with it. And when, after their sad
walk, they had returned to the Temple, they were received by the
sentinels and the turnkey with renewed insults; and, as if it were
not enough to fill the ear with this abuse, the eye too must have
its share. The vilest of expressions were written upon the walls of
the corridors which the royal party had to traverse. You might read
there: "Madame Veto will soon be dancing again. Down with the
Austrian she-wolf! The wolf's brood must be strangled. The king must
be hanged with his own ribbon!" Another time they had drawn a
gallows, on which a figure was hanging, with the expression written
beneath, "Louis taking an air-bath!"
And so, even the short walks of the prisoners were transformed into
suffering. At first the queen thought she could not bear it, and the
promenades were given up. But the pale cheeks of her daughter, the
longing looks which the dauphin cast from the closed window to the
garden, warned the mother to do what the queen found too severe a
task. She underwent the pain involved in this, she submitted
herself, and every day the royal pair took the dear children into
the garden again, and bore this unworthy treatment without
complaint, that the children might enjoy a little air and sunshine.
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