About the 6th of May the young prince fell ill. The queen was alarmed, and asked to see M. Brunier, his ordinary physician; the request was met with a mocking reply, and no further notice taken of it, until the child’s state became so serious that the prison doctor was ordered by the Commune to go and see what was amiss with him. The doctor humanely consulted M. Brunier, who was well acquainted with the patient’s constitution, and otherwise did all that was in his power to alleviate his condition. This was not much, but the queen and Mme. Elizabeth, who for three weeks never left the little sufferer’s pillow, were keenly alive to the kindness of the medical man. This illness made no noise outside the Temple walls; but Mme. Royale always declared that her brother had never really recovered from it, and that it was the first stage of the disease which ultimately destroyed him. The government had hitherto been too busy with more important matters to have leisure to attend to such a trifle as the life or death of “little Capet.” It was busy watching and striving to control the struggle between the Jacobins and the Girondists, which ended finally in the overthrow of the latter. On the 9th of July, however, it suddenly directed its notice to the young captive, and issued a decree ordering him to be immediately separated from Antoinette, and confided to a tutor (_instituteur_), who should be chosen by the nation. It was ten o’clock at night when six commissaries, like so many birds of ill-omen, entered the Temple, and ascended the narrow, barricaded stairs leading to the queen’s rooms. The young prince was lying fast asleep in his little curtainless bed, with a shawl suspended by tender hands to shade him from the light on the table, where his mother and aunt sat mending their clothes. The men delivered their message in loud tones; but the child slept on. It was only when the queen uttered a great cry of despair that he awoke, and beheld her with clasped hands praying to the commissaries. They turned from her with a savage laugh, and approached the bed to seize the prince. Marie Antoinette, quicker than thought, flew towards it, and, clasping him in her arms, clung despairingly to the bed-post. One of the men was about to use violence in order to seize the boy, but another stayed his hand, exclaiming: “It does not become us to fight with women; call up the guard!” Horror-stricken at the threat, Mme. Elizabeth cried out: “No, for God’s sake, no! We submit, we cannot resist; but give us time to breathe. Let the child sleep out the night here. He will be delivered to you to-morrow.” This prayer was spurned, and then the queen entreated as a last mercy that her son might remain in the tower, where she might still see him. A commissary retorted brutally, _tutoyant_ her, “What! you make such a to-do because, forsooth, you are separated from your child, while our children are sent to the frontiers to have their brains