This prisoner was indeed only a child of eight years, but the
legitimists--and there were many of them still in the country--
called him the King of France; and priests in loyal Vendee, when
they had finished the daily mass for the murdered king, prayed to
God, with uplifted hands, for grace and deliverance for the young
captive at the Temple, the young king, Louis XVII.
"Le roi est mort--Vive le roi!"
There were, it must be confessed, among the royalists and
legitimists many who thought of the young prisoner with bitterness
and anger, and who accused and blamed him as the calumniator of his
mother! As if the child knew what he was doing when, at the command
of his tormentor Simon, he wrote with trembling hand his name upon
the paper which was laid before him in the open court. As if the
poor innocent boy knew what meaning the dreadful questions had,
which the merciless judges put to him, and which he answered with
no, or with yes, according as his scrutinizing looks were able to
make out the fitting answer on the hard face of Simon, who stood
near him. For the unhappy lad had already learned to read the face
of the turnkey, and knew very well that every wrinkle of the
forehead which was caused by him must be atoned for with dreadful
sufferings, abuses, and blows.
The poor boy was afraid of the heavy fist that came down like an
iron club upon his back and even on his face, when he said any thing
or did any thing that displeased Simon or his wife; and therefore he
sought to escape this cruel treatment, confirming with his yes and
no what Simon told the judges, and what the child in his innocence
did not understand! And therefore he subscribed the paper without
reluctance in which he unconsciously gave evidence that disgraced
his mother.
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