This horrible place he was expected to keep clean, but his strength was unequal to the task, and he was glad to crawl to his bed when ordered by his guards, who refused to give him a light. Even there he was not allowed to rest in peace, and often the commissaries appointed to relieve those on duty would often noisily arouse him from his pleasant dreams by rattling at his wicket, crying, "Capet, Capet, are you asleep? Where are you? Young viper, get up!" And the little startled form would creep from the bed and crawl to the wicket; while the faint gentle voice would answer, "I am here, citizens, what do you want with me?" "To see you," would be the surly reply of the watch for the night. "All right. Get to bed. In!--Down!" And this performance would be repeated several times before morning. It would have killed a strong man in a short time. How long could a child stand it? Days and weeks and months did pass, and as they passed brought increasing langour, and weakness, and illness. The want of fresh air, the abandonment and the solitude, had all had their effect, and the unfortunate dauphin could scarcely lift the heavy earthenware platter which contained his food, or the heavier jar in which his water was brought. He soon left off sweeping his room, and never tried to move the palliasse off his bed. He could not change his filthy sheets, and his blanket was worn into tatters. He wore his ragged jacket and trousers--Simon's legacy--both day and night, and although he felt all this misery he could not cry. Loathsome creatures crawled in his den and over his person until even the little scullion who attended him shuddered with horror as he glanced into the place and muttered, "Everything is _alive_ in that room." "Yes," says Beauchesne, "everything was alive except the boy they were killing by inches, and murdering in detail. This beautiful child, so admired at Versailles and at the Tuileries, would not recognise himself, his form is scarcely human--it is something that vegetates--a moving mass of bones and skin. Never could any state of misery have been conceived more desolate, more lonely, more threatening than this!... And all that I here relate is true! These troubles, insults, and torments were heaped on the head of a child. I show them to you, like indeed to what they were, but far short of the reality. Cowardly and cruel men, why did you stop in your frenzy of murder? It would have been better to drink that last drop of royal blood, than to mingle it with gall and venom and poison; it would have been better to smother the child, as was done by the emissaries of Richard III. in the Tower of London, than to degrade and sully his intellect by that slow method of assassination which killed the mind before it slew the body. He should have been struck a year or two before; his little feet should have been aided to mount the rude steps of the guillotine! Ah, if she could have known