Madame Elizabeth and her niece still lived in the suite occupied by the Queen. The little Dauphin had been snatched away from his mother on the night of July 3, 1793, and handed over to the care of the bootmaker, Antoine Simon. Simon and his wife--as a recent work has made quite clear--were very far from being guilty of the cruelties to the child attributed to them by tradition. Chosen for his task by Chaumette, whose authority at the Temple was supreme, and looking up to him as his master, Simon was a rough specimen, uncouth somewhat in his ways, and too fond of the bottle, violently republican in his sentiments, but at bottom a decent fellow, and not wantonly cruel nor ill-natured. His wife is shown to have had a good heart; she had been seen at the bootmakers’ hospital, where her conduct won the praise of all, working very actively and thoroughly at her task. She was known to be a great chatterbox. Such as she was, Madame Simon undoubtedly felt much sympathy with the child confided to her care. What did Simon and his wife do with the young Dauphin? Did he fade away in their hands, into the living spectre, the martyr succumbing to blows and bruises that the Eckards and de Beauchesnes and Chantelauzes would have us believe? Assuredly not. Doubtless the complete change in his existence, the sense of being closed in and confined, must have told upon the small prisoner. After the splendours of Versailles, it must have been hard upon him to be subjected at once to so severe a _régime_ and to have for company a household of vulgar, common people, without education. And tears must have coursed down his cheeks. But there is a gulf between this and the stories of systematic cruelties, and we may well refuse to believe in anything of this kind until ample proof is forthcoming. Suddenly, on January 19, 1794, it became known in the Temple _quartier_ that the Simons were giving up their functions and settling down somewhere else.[66] What was the reason of this? Explanations differ. It is certain that Simon had no heart for his duties, and that he must have emitted a sigh of satisfaction when he left the Temple. He showed the child before he quitted to the four men who were told off to replace him, and received from them a voucher to the effect that he was in good health. Henceforth, for the next six months, the Dauphin is to be immured in his prison, and no one is to penetrate within; the door of his cell is to be bolted and barred, and food is to be ministered to him through a grille. The four Commissioners of the Commune entrusted with his care will take it turn about to spy at him through the peep-hole in the door, but none of them will set foot inside.