Ten Boys from History Part 10

Calmly, the queen turned to a general standing beside her and told him to place it on her head.

The general, pale with rage at the insult, obeyed in silence and the woman howled with pleasure. But in a moment, the general took the cap off the queen's hair and laid it on the table.

Ever since the King had vetoed the bills, the people had called the King, Monsieur Veto; Marie Antoinette, Madame Veto, and the Dauphin, Little Veto, and now from all sides burst forth the cry, "The red cap for the Dauphin! The tri-colour for little Veto!"

"If you love the nation," cried the woman to the Queen, "put the red cap on your son."

The Queen motioned to one of the ladies to put the red cap on the child, and he, not understanding whether it was a joke or not, stood there in easy grace, as handsome a little prince as ever a nation had.

One of the revolutionary leaders, who had looked complacently at the scene, now stood near the queen, and as her eyes met his in calm defiance, he felt a thrill of pity for her and for the little Dauphin, and when he saw the perspiration rolling down the boy's forehead from under the thick woollen cap, he called out roughly:

"Take that cap off the child--don't you see how he sweats?"

The queen's gratified glance thanked him, as she took the cap herself from the Dauphin's head. While this was occurring, the Mayor of Paris had entered the outer hall and was quieting the mob, bidding them disband and leave the palace at once, which they did.

The King sank into a chair, exhausted and agonised, and cried out:

"Where is the queen? Where are the children?" and in a moment the royal victims were together.

The Dauphin's spirits were never long cast down and now he was bubbling over with joy.

"Papa," he cried. "Give me a kiss! I deserve it, for I was truly brave and did not cry or even speak when the people put the red cap on my head."

The king stooped with a dignity which was almost reverent, kissed the boy's broad forehead and pushed back his thick golden hair, then turned to answer a question put by one of the representatives of the people; several of whom were in the room. And all at once these men gathered around the little Dauphin, of whose brilliant mind they had heard so much, and began to question him eagerly on all kinds of subjects, especially about the boundaries of France, and its division into departments and districts, and every question he answered quickly.

After each answer he glanced up at his mother inquiringly, and when her face showed that he had answered correctly, his face beamed with pleasure, and he enjoyed seeing the astonishment on those faces crowding around him. One of those present asked:

"Do you sing, too, Prince?"

The Dauphin glanced again at the queen.

"Mamma," he asked, "shall I sing the prayer I sang this morning?"

Marie Antoinette nodded a.s.sent and the Dauphin knelt beside her, and folding his hands and looking up with a sweet look of reverence in his blue eyes, sang in a clear voice:

"Oh heaven, accept the prayer I offer here, Unto his subjects spare My father dear."

There was absolute silence in the room, while those faces, before so hard and stern, softened. Then with a single glance at the lovely boy, who was still kneeling, with a look on his face as if in a happy dream, one by one, those revolutionists silently left the room.

But even the prayer and the faith of the Dauphin could not longer save the royal family from their fate.

The people, inflamed to fury by every desire of which the revolutionists could make use, now demanded the dethronement of the King, and the giving of the crown to the Dauphin, in whose name, as he was not yet of age, they intended to govern by means of a committee chosen by themselves. To this the King naturally would not give his consent, and amid scenes and sounds terrible beyond all description, the royal family were declared prisoners of the people, and told that they were to thereafter live in the Temple, which was now the royal prison. As the Tuileries had already been pillaged by the mob, the royal family found themselves without food or clothing, except what they wore. The Dauphin was entirely dest.i.tute, but fortunately the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland had a small son the age of the Dauphin, and she sent the young prince what he needed in the way of clothing for their departure. On August 13, 1792, the sad procession of royalty left the Tuileries in the late afternoon and were escorted by a great mob of frenzied men and women who acted more like wild beasts than like human beings. At night-fall the carriage reached the Temple and the royal prisoners were taken to that part of the building called "the palace,"

where they found no comforts or necessities of any kind, and torn sheets even had to be used on the Dauphin's bed. Later while the furies who had the prisoners in their power, were converting the princ.i.p.al tower of the building, not only into a prison, but into the worst one imaginable, the king and his family continued to remain in the palace during the day time, but at night, they were all shut up in the small tower--in four cells whose doors were guarded by soldiers. Two men who had been for years in the service of the king, were allowed to remain with him, and they and their sovereigns pa.s.sed the time in such occupations as were possible. The King found his princ.i.p.al pleasure in superintending the Dauphin's education, giving him lessons every morning, then at one o'clock if the weather was fine, the royal family would all go into the garden, and the Dauphin would play ball or quoits or run races, as was suitable for his age and activity of body. At two o'clock dinner was served, and afterwards, the Dauphin again had a play hour while the king enjoyed a nap. As soon as he awoke, Clery, who had been with the Dauphin for several years, would give him writing and arithmetic lessons, and then he would play ball or battledore-and-shuttlec.o.c.k for awhile, and then there would be reading aloud until it was time for the Dauphin's supper, after which the king would amuse his children with all sorts of riddles and puzzles and games, and then the Dauphin went to bed.

Little Louis was seven and a half years old when he was first shut up in the Temple, and in those months the king taught him to recite poetry, to draw maps and to make use of arithmetic, but his lessons in arithmetic had to be discontinued because an ignorant guard noticed the multiplication tables that the Prince was learning and reported that he was being taught to speak and write in cipher. One of the king's men was removed from the Temple because it was said that he had used hieroglyphics in order to make secret correspondence between the king and queen easier, and even his explanation that the figures he had made use of were only arithmetic tables which he laid by the Dauphin's bedside every night before retiring, that the young prince might prepare his lesson before breakfast, did not pacify his accusers. So little Louis Charles was taught no more arithmetic, but he continued to learn eagerly all that was offered his quick retentive mind to a.s.similate. His playfulness and mischievous pranks were a great comfort to the failing spirits of the king and queen, and the tact he showed in his manner and words were nothing less than wonderful in so young a boy. He never mentioned Versailles or the Tuileries or anything which would rouse sad memories in the minds of his parents, but seemed to be constantly on his guard to protect them both from any hints of sorrow which he could prevent.

The royal prisoners were soon removed to the princ.i.p.al tower of the Temple, where the Dauphin occupied a room with the king, until after Louis was taken away for trial, when the Dauphin was placed in his mother's care, and after that time he saw his father only once. The king was condemned to death. Having foreseen it, calmly he had accepted the decree, asking only that he might see his family once to say farewell. This privilege was granted and during the scene which lasted almost two hours, little Louis, born to inherit not glory but misfortune, held his father in his arms and kissed and comforted him in the fas.h.i.+on of a strong man rather than a little child. He did not understand causes, but he saw effects, and he was brave because mamma and papa needed someone beside them, who smiled, and so he held tears back until the time when they were a natural consequence of the final parting with his loved father.

And now little Louis was no longer the Dauphin, but rightful King of France--King of France, only think of it, and scarcely eight years old!

Marie Antoinette, from the hour of separation from her husband devoted her entire strength and time to the education of her child, the little King. She felt she had no time to lose, and every moment of the day was made to serve some useful end. Even the games he played had each a purpose. It was a touching sight to see him leaning his elbows on a tiny table, absorbed in reading the history of France, then eagerly telling what he had read, and commenting on it. The queen made a special point of talking to the little King of his royal office, told him of his father's gentleness and mercy to his enemies, and made him promise to be as merciful if he should ever reign, and he soon was made to feel that greatness comes not with t.i.tles, but with character, and once in his sleep was heard to murmur:

"I will be good and kind; for I am king." Poor little Louis!

At this time there were wars and rumours of wars outside the walls of the Temple. Plots to liberate the queen and her son and to restore little Louis to the throne were set on foot by friends of the royal family, and though one and all failed of execution, they vitally affected the young king's life. When the plots were discovered by which Louis was to be abducted and publicly declared king, the revolutionists became so fearful that the plan might be really carried out, that they decided it was unwise to let him remain with his mother any longer, and the decree went forth that the son of Louis Sixteenth was to be taken from his mother and sister, and given into the care of a tutor to be chosen by the committee representing the people.

The queen was driven almost to madness by this unexpected decree, and when men came to take Louis away from her and carry him to another part of the Tower, she frantically placed herself in front of his bed, and insisted that he should not be taken, but power and force were on the wrong side, and at last, the officers tore the child from his mother's arms and carried him dazed and trembling with fright to his new apartment.

King of France was little Louis in t.i.tle, but the most lonely, most frightened of all children in the land. For two days and two nights he refused food and held out his arms to his so-called tutor, constantly pleading to be taken back to his mother and sister. And who was his "tutor"? No other than Simon, the cobbler, he whose brawny arms had once stopped the Dauphin's way in the garden of the Tuileries. Simon and his wife had been chosen to guard and care for the little King of France, because they were staunch revolutionists who could be relied on to protect the interests of their party. Historians differ in their accounts of the treatment of the young King by this rough couple, but it seems pretty sure now that during their stay in the Temple they were not altogether cruel to little Louis. He was allowed to play both in his rooms and in the garden, had a billiard table, and a case of mechanical birds for his amus.e.m.e.nt, and when he grieved for his sister's companions.h.i.+p, another little companion of his own age was found to play with him, and it is also known that during his two sicknesses, Simon and his wife cared for him with as much devotion as if he had been their own child. Whether this was because of the fine salary attached to the position, or from some native kindness underneath his coa.r.s.e rough exterior, we do not know, but be this as it may, Simon evidently gave only such measure of cruelty to his charge as was insisted on by those who employed him, and it was doubtless, they who forced Simon to do what he did to destroy the child's mental and bodily faculties. Louis was made to share their political opinions, to imitate their coa.r.s.e manners and even to sing their revolutionary songs, while in place of the mourning he had worn for his father, he now wore the coa.r.s.est garments and the red cap of the Jacobins, and was often made to drink and eat far more than was good for him, until at last he was in a condition of body and mind such as his tormentors desired, when he could be made a tool to suit their own ends, because of his weakened and abnormal condition.

No page of history is written in so black an ink nor with so many blots as that on which is recorded the imprisonment and torture of little Louis Seventeenth, the King who never reigned, and no page of history offers a more bewildering puzzle for solution, from the moment of his being taken from his mother's care--a puzzle to which there have been more answers, and about which as much mystery hangs, as about any other incident on the pages of history, and no page has been oftener read and re-read than this which offers for solution the problem of the ending of this little King who never reigned.

We see him last as a prisoner; thin, haggard, sick unto death, with no sparkle in his l.u.s.treless eyes, no motion in his swollen joints, no pretty retort on his lips as of old, and with a sigh we turn from the ghastly sight to the pages of French history where we again read in detail the accounts of his life and death, and then it is for us to decide upon our answer to this riddle which offers more than one solution.

Louis Seventeenth of France, in his ninth year, was imprisoned by the revolutionists and subjected to every kind of torture that a human being could be made to suffer. As a result of that treatment, and of loneliness and cruelty, did he pine and sicken and die a natural death as some accounts say?

Did he, as some say, deliberately resist all the attempts made by his persecutors to enter into conversation with him, by maintaining a complete silence of fifteen months; or had a dumb child been put in his place by friends who had secretly rescued the real little king from his prison, and hidden him in a garret room of the Temple until they could safely liberate him? Then finding the dumb child too healthy to suit their plans, did they, as it is said, replace him by a very sick child, who died in the room where the little king was supposed to be imprisoned, and announce his death to the French nation as that of Louis Seventeenth, the royal prisoner? While the poor little subst.i.tute was lying in what was supposedly the coffin of little Louis, had the real King been given a strong dose of opium, and hurriedly placed in the coffin, instead of the subst.i.tute, as has been said?

Was the dead subst.i.tute carried hastily to the room in the Tower where the little King had been hidden, while Louis himself, alive and well, was being carried in the coffin to the cemetery? It has been said that the carriage in which the coffin was carried had been especially arranged for this scheme, and that while being driven to the cemetery, Louis was taken from the coffin, and placed in a box under the seat of the carriage, while the coffin was filled with papers that it might not seem too light when the bearers carried it to its final resting-place.

Is it true, do you think, that when the young King awoke from the effects of the drug he had been given, he found himself in a strange place, in a bed in a clear bright room, alone with a faithful woman who knew and loved him? And the plot to rescue him having been immediately discovered, was he hastily sent out of Paris in disguise, while to put his enemies on the wrong trail, another little boy was sent with his parents under the name of Louis, in another direction?

And in spite of the terrible sickness he had, as the consequence of all he had endured, did Louis Seventeenth of France, actually live and escape, to grow up a free citizen in a free country where were neither kings, queens nor tyranny, but liberty, equality and fraternity, not in word but in truth? Who can say positively when so much has been affirmed on all sides of the much argued question?

Difficult, indeed, it is to decide whether little Louis Seventeenth, the Dauphin of France, the king who never reigned, died in the Temple, a victim of the Reign of Terror, or escaped to new lands and a new life.

As we turn the pages of history and read the thrilling story, let each decide for himself the fate of the courageous, charming little sovereign. Each must study out the mystery, and solve the riddle if he can. And whatever one may read or decide, there in the church of the Madeleine in Paris, may be found this memorial to the little King who never reigned.

IN MEMORY of LOUIS XVII WHO AFTER HAVING BEHELD HIS ILl.u.s.tRIOUS PARENTS SWEPT AWAY BY A DEATH WHICH SORROW REFUSES TO RECOUNT AND AFTER HAVING DRAINED TO THE VERY DREGS THE CUP OF ADVERSITY WAS, WHILE STILL YOUNG AND ALMOST ON LIFE'S THRESHOLD CUT DOWN BY THE SCYTHE OF DEATH HE DIED JUNE VIII--M. DCC. Lx.x.xXV.

HE LIVED X YEARS, II MONTHS & XII DAYS

EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE:

The Boy Warrior

Many of you who have visited Queens College, Oxford, will have seen there, hanging in the gallery above the hall, an old engraving of a quaint vaulted room, where it is said the greatest soldier of his age lived while a student in the college.

This afterwards famous student, who was then about twelve years old was Edward Plantagenet, Prince of Wales, later called the Black Prince. He was also sometimes called the Prince of Woodstock, doubtless, from the fact that he was born in the old palace at Woodstock, in 1330.

He was the son of Edward Third and Queen Philippa, and was one of those rare persons who combine in their characters qualities of both his father and mother. Everyone knows the story of the siege of Calais, when the sternness of King Edward and the gentleness of Queen Philippa were so strikingly shown, and it was the union of those two qualities which gave their son, Edward, that high place which he justly occupies, not only among our English princes, but in the history of all Europe.

He was undoubtedly sent to Queens College, not only because it was the most famous college of that day, but also because it took its name from his mother, Queen Philippa, having been founded by her chaplain.

There, at Queens College, we first see the young prince, and although six hundred years have gone by since then, many of the customs of to-day were those of young Edward's time as well. The students then were called to dinner by the blast of a trumpet as they are to-day, and then, as now, the Fellows (or post graduates) all sat on one side of the table, with the Head of the college in their midst, in imitation of the pictures of the Last Supper.

The prince must have seen, too, some customs which we know prevailed in his day, but do not see in ours. Thirteen lame, deaf, blind and maimed beggars came each morning into the college hall to receive their portion of food for the day. The porter of the college made his rounds early every morning, to shave the beards and wash the heads of the Fellows, but these and many other quaint customs have perished long ago and still the picture of the Black Prince hangs on the college wall.

Tradition tells us that while the proud young prince was receiving such education as befitted his rank in life, a poor boy in the shabbiest of clothes and forgetful of everything except the books and study he loved, was at Queens College too. The characters and lives of John Wycliff, the great reformer, and Edward the Black Prince, were indeed opposite, but it is interesting to feel that they were educated in the same place, that possibly once in youth, their lives touched, although in later days, one was great in the making of peace and one in the making of war.