Then Marie Antoinette's countenance would lighten,
a smile would play over her features and linger on her pale lips as
long as they were speaking of her boy. But oh! soon there came other
tidings about the unhappy child. His wailing tones, Simon's threats,
and his wife's abusive words penetrated even the queen's apartments,
and filled her with the anguish of despair. And yet it was not the
worst to hear him cry, and to know that the son of the queen was
treated ill; it was still more dreadful to hear him sing with a loud
voice, accompanied by the laugh and the bravoes of Simon and his
wife, revolutionary and obscene songs--to know that not only his
body but his soul was doomed to destruction.
At first the queen, on hearing these dreadful songs, broke out into
lamentations, cries, and loud threats against those who were
destroying the soul of her child. Then a gradual paralysis crept
over her heart, and when, on the 3d of August, she was taken from
the Temple to the prison, the pale lips of the queen merely
whispered,
"Thank God, I shall not have to hear him sing any more!"
BOOK V.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.
The Bartholomew's night of the murderous Catharine de Medicis, and
her mad son, Charles IX., now found in France its horrible and
bloody repetition; but the night of horror which we are now to
contemplate was continued on into the day, and did not shrink even
before the light.
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