Simon was a thick-set, black-visaged man of fifty-eight years of age. He worked as a shoemaker next door to Marat, whose patronage procured for him the office of “tutor” to the son of Louis XVI. His wife is described as an ill-favored woman of the same age as her husband, with a temper as sour and irascible as his was vicious and cruel. They got five hundred francs a month for maltreating the “little Capet,” whom Simon never addressed except as “viper.” “wolf-cub,” “poison-toad,” adding kicks and blows as expletives. For two days and nights the child wept unceasingly, refusing to eat or sleep, and crying out continually to be taken back to his mother. He was starved and beaten into sullen silence and a sort of hopeless submission. If he showed terror or surprise at a threat, it was treated as insolent rebellion, and he was seized and beaten as if he had attempted a crime. All this first month of Simon’s tutorship the child was so ill as to be under medical treatment. But this was no claim on the tutor’s mercy; if it had been, he would have been unfitted for his task, and would not have been chosen for it. He was astonished, nevertheless, at the indomitable spirit of his victim, at the quiet firmness with which he bore his treatment, and at the perseverance with which he continued to insist on being restored to his mother. How long would it take to break this royal “wolf-cub”? Simon began to be perplexed about it. He must have advice from headquarters, and fuller liberty for the exercise of his own ingenuity. Four members of the Committee of _Sûreté Générale_ betook themselves to the Temple, and there held a conference with the patriot shoemaker which remains one of the most curious incidents of those wonderful days. Amongst the four councillors was Drouet, the famous post-master of Sainte Ménéhould, and Chabot, an apostate monk. One of the others related the secret conference to Sénart, secretary of the committee, who thus transcribed it at the time: “Citizens,” asks Simon, “what do you decide as to the treatment of the wolf-cub? He has been brought up to be insolent. I can tame him, but I cannot answer that he will not sink under it (_crever_). So much the worse for him; but, after all, what do you mean to do with him? To banish him?” Answer: “No.” “To kill him?” “No.” “To poison him?” “No.” “But what, then?” “_To get rid of him_” (_s’en défaire_).