“All men who have been in the Government occupation during the late King’s life, to quit Paris. “The delivery of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Moderate Conventionists. “The right to search any house at any hour of the night. “The transportation beyond the seas of every common woman in the land. “Finally, the payment of workmen who should leave their shops to follow up the public service.” By these measures the mob were not only encouraged to take life, but paid to do it. Nothing could save such a system resulting, if long continued, in national death! By the way, _Sunday_ was chosen as the best day for working these mob committees. This was followed by Merlin’s decree, which provided for the arrest (without proof) of any suspected person, and of all those who, not working, were enabled to live in a better condition than one of penury. This was an attack upon all people who had hidden money. In fact, starvation had by this time become the only mode of avoiding the guillotine. Prisons were not large enough to contain prisoners, and all the confiscated churches were converted into gaols. Death was decreed for almost every act of life—certainly for every act of pity. A hundred men, less two, were beheaded in sixty days in Paris alone. The Queen was too noble a victim to escape. The Convention suddenly ordered her trial, and commanded her separation from the two children. Now all the lethargy which has possessed her since the King’s death departs, and she becomes as a lioness fighting for her young. By this time, all the beauty of Marie Antoinette had vanished, and there remained a very broken old woman, aged about a little more than thirty, with very scanty white hair, falling in patches from an almost bald head. The body, as the soul, had shrunken—a skeleton remained, covered with mere skin. This was the Queen, who leapt into life when her dulled hearing comprehended that she was to be separated from her children. They had but the mercy only to remove the son. The boy clung to his mother, who lost all dignity, dug her nails into the child’s flesh, and called upon the men to kill them both. For two hours this lasted, and then she became a woman again—a mother; and dressing him to look as smart as possible, she gave him up with her own hands to his gaoler, Simon, who took him at once to the room where the child was destined to die. For two days and nights the child lay upon the floor, taking neither food nor drink. The Queen never took her son in her arms. He was to outlive her but a little time, and then die of sheer ill-usage and neglect. The Queen, however, still had her husband’s sister and her daughter with her. The only consolation they had, was ascending to the platform of their tower, to catch a glimpse of the boy on the platform of the other tower.