Be good and patient, and your Father in heaven will
bless you."
She bent over, and with her cold lips pressed a kiss upon the
forehead of her son, then gently pushed him toward the turnkey. But
the boy sprang back to her again, clung to her with his arms, and
would not go.
"My son, we must obey. God wills it so." A loud, savage laugh was
heard. Shuddering, the queen turned around. There at the open door
stood Simon, and with him his wife, their hard features turned
maliciously toward the pale queen. The woman stretched out her
brown, bare arms to the child, grasped him, and pushed him before
her to the door.
"Is she to have him?" shrieked Marie Antoinette. "Is my son to
remain with this woman?"
"Yes," said Simon, with a grinning smile, as he put himself, with
his arms akimbo, before the queen--" yes, with this woman and with
me, her husband, little Capet is to remain, and I tell you he shall
receive a royal education. We shall teach him to forget the past,
and only to remember that he is a child of the one and indivisible
republic. If he does not come to it, he must be brought to it, and
my old cobbler's straps will be good helpers in this matter."
He nodded at Marie Antoinette with a fiendish smile, and then
followed the officials, who had already gone out. The doors were
closed again, the bolts drawn, and within the chamber reigned the
stillness of death.
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