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“Oh, madame!” said the Queen in a tone of naked supplication. “Just show them the scapular.”

“Oh, yes,” said the woman. “Pity you, is it! … And who pities me, I ask you? … They’re taking my daughter away from me.”

Madame Elisabeth and Madame Royale8 proved to have nothing on them, so Madame Tison called out to the municipal officers and they marched back into the room with Santerre at the helm. She handed them the objects she had found on the Queen, which were passed round from man to man, giving rise to numerous conjectures. The handkerchief with its three knots in particular kept the imagination of the persecutors of the royal race busy for some time.

“Now,” said Santerre, “we will read you the Commune decree.”

“What decree?” the Queen demanded to know.

“The decree that orders you to be separated from your son.”

“So it is true that this decree exists?”

“Yes. The Convention is too concerned with the care of a child entrusted to the nation to leave him in the company of a mother as depraved as you.”

The Queen’s eyes flashed fire. “Come up with an actual accusation, at least, tigers that you are!”

“That’s not hard, for crying out loud,” jeered one of the officers. “Let’s see …” And he named the foul crime—the crime of incest!—Suetonius once accused Agrippina9 of.

“Oh!” cried the Queen, on her feet, white and magnificent with indignation. “I appeal to any mother who has a heart.”10

“Come! Come! All this is very well but we haven’t got all day; we’ve already been here too long. Get up, Capet, and follow us.”

“Never! Never!” cried the Queen, throwing herself between the municipal officers and the young Louis, ready to defend the approach to the bed as a tigress defends her lair. “I will never let anyone take my child away from me!”

“Oh, messieurs,” Madame Elisabeth entreated, joining her hands in a moving attitude of prayer. “Messieurs, in the name of Heaven! Have pity on two poor mothers!”11

“Speak, then! Give us names!” said Santerre. “Confess to your accomplices’ plans, explain what these knots mean tied in a handkerchief the Tison girl brought in with your linen and tied in the handkerchief found in your pocket, and we’ll let you keep your son.”

Madame Elisabeth shot the Queen a look that seemed to entreat her to make the terrible sacrifice demanded. But the Queen, proudly wiping a tear that glittered like a diamond at the corner of her eye, merely said, “Adieu, my son. Never forget your father, who is in heaven, and your mother, who will soon join him there; say the prayer I taught you, every night and every morning. Adieu, my son.”

She gave her son one last kiss before straightening up, cold and unyielding. “I know nothing, messieurs. Do what you will.”

But the Queen did not have the superhuman strength required, especially for a mother, to maintain her pose. She fell, utterly annihilated, onto a chair as they took the child away, sobbing and holding out his arms to her, though without uttering a single cry.

The door shut behind the municipal officers as they carried off the royal child, leaving the three women to themselves. There was a moment of desperate silence, interrupted only by a few stifled sobs. The Queen was the first to break the silence.

“My daughter, what did you do with the note?”

“I burned it, as you told me to do, Mother.”

“Without reading it?”

“Without reading it.”

“Adieu, then, last ray of light, supreme hope!” murmured Madame Elisabeth.

“Oh! You are right! You are right, my sister. This is too much for anyone to bear.” She turned to her daughter again. “But you did see the writing, at least, Marie?”

“Yes, Mother, for a second.”

The Queen stood and went to the door to check whether anyone was watching, and then she pulled a pin from her hair and walked over to a part of the wall where there was a crack, out of which she hooked a small piece of paper folded up like a note. She unfolded it. Showing the note to Madame Royale, she said, “Try to remember very carefully, my daughter,