mamma's and papa's faces! A horrid feverish
night that we must never think of!

TABLEAU THIRD.

Again roll away the black dungeon walls; and
here are lights, and flowers, and scenes, and
gallery over gallery, and a whole sea of faces turned
upwards and looking towards the royal box.
This night has the king and queen and little
prince visited the French comedy. They are
playing a piece with astrangely significant title—
Unforeseen Events—and from the front of this
box the pretty child of six years looks down
and laughs and makes his remarks. No doubt
the burr and murmurs abroad, the fierce insolent
figures, so free with their bold speeches and
deportment, who cluster in mobs at the
palace gates, and speak to his mother as "the
Austrian," are beginning to weigh upon his little
soul and puzzle his brain. But here, to-night,
was a strange scene: a house crammed from floor
to ceiling, a parterre densely packed, rising
to cheer their majesties. Hats and handkerchiefs
waving! Half a dozen voices groan a
protest, but are overpowered and driven out
by the loyalists. Hark to the comic valet and
the soubrette, who are at the foot-lights singing
couplets in praise of their master and mistress
up-stairs. "Ah!" they join in the burden:
"Surely we must make them happy!
Surely we must make them happy!"
and the pit is on its feet cheering and vociferating
"Yes! yes!"

Something very sweet in this night of romance
—the lights, the music, that delicious rapture of
our subjects—to send us home with tears of
joy. Royal mamma and papa, supremely happy,
dream that all may yet be well.

TABLEAU FOURTH.

The horrid day of the twentieth June, when
the red-capped "breechless " poured in with
pikes, and flooded the palace—he would shut
that out, if possible—when there was the crash
of doors broken in, and the royal lady, clutching
him to her arms, is hunted from chamber to
chamber—sliding panels—secret passages—and
a howling mob outside!—when, too, a table was
drawn in front of her as a feeble barrier against
the frantic human waves pouring in at the door.
A roar, and the vile red cap is upon that noble
lady's flowing hair: another roar, and a cry of
"Little Veto!" and that decoration is upon his
own head! Pikes flourish in the air, wild women
come up to his mother and shake their closed
fists in her face. Savage men gather round
him and question him, and he gives them his
quaint answers. So it rolls on, wearily,
anxiously, until night, when the waters recede
slowly, and the palace is at peace. Close, in a
disordered sequence, follow other terrible days:
this rousing of him at midnight by beating of
drums and tocsin, and the great bells ringing far
and wide over Paris, as for fire, and the woman
rushing in and dressing him hurriedly. Not
without a shudder can he think of that awful
daybreak. The messengers hurrying in with
news that all is lost, and that the king must die,
and of that sad procession when he was carried in
the grenadier's arms, and heard the air rent with
the cries "Death to the tyrant!" As he looks
back over the grenadier's shoulder, he sees the
smoke from the windows, and through the smoke
the scarlet coats of his father's Swiss, and cannon
lumbering by him with fierce men in blouses and
the eternal red cap, tugging them on with ropes.
Then the interminable day, cramping in the
little box in the Assembly, with myriads of
hostile faces glaring on them, the stifling
overpowering heat, the shots outside, the periodical
eruption of savage men, all smirched and bloody,
their hands full of rich gold and silver, plundered
from papa's palace. But it comes to an end, like
other long weary days we shudder to think of;
and then the black pall rolls its dismal folds
over all!

We are most of us familiar, by aid of Valet
Cléry's touching narrative and M. Duchesne's
researches, with the stages of that martyrdom
of the little St. Louis. We know the minutest
details of that frightful persecution, the
degradation of mind and body, that masquerading in
the red cap, that drugging of him with strong
spirits, that forcing upon his innocent tongue
vile street songs and licentious ballads. Nay,
there are yet to be seen those shaking trembling
signatures, wrung from him by a fearful
terrorism; and even the tailor's bills, for furnishing
"the son of Capet" with "striped Pekin"
waistcoats, and the "ells of superfine cloth"
for a coat. These little records, like Mr. Filby's
bills, recovered for us by Mr. Forster, touch us
more than volumes of description. We may
follow the steps of his sufferings, with a
minuteness unparalleled in the history of jails.
We have a secret yet unsubstantial trust
that there has been some exaggeration. We
take one glimpse at that piteous picture, which
somehow comes home to our hearts nearest of
all, when the child was discovered at midnight
kneeling on his pallet, and praying in his dreams,
in a sort of divine rapture; and when the savage
who guarded him came with a pail of water and
so brought him back to life, and sent him crouching
and cowering into a corner. Was he dreaming
of the celestial palaces, and of that dear papa
and mamma whom his affectionate heart had
already enthroned there, and who were holding
out their arms to him from those happy sunny
gardens where there would be no more terrible
days of blood, and wild savage men and cruel
jailers?

The end and a happy delivery came speedily.
Joyful days, long wished-for, came about, when
a slow wasting away and lassitude set in, and
his strength gave way, and his gentle spirit was
beaten in the struggle. During those hours
kind voices whispered to him, kind faces bent
over him, and smoothed his pillow. On that
last day, a little after noon, he heard a sort of
divine music filling the room; then, looking
eagerly towards the full light streaming in at
the window, called to his keeper that he had