Subsequently when Marie Antoinette was removed to the Conciergerie, a place of confinement of the lowest order, her suffering was greatly increased at not being allowed to work. The jailors refused even knitting-needles. At length the thought came to her of drawing out some threads from the stuffing of her bed, which, with two wooden skewers, she knitted into garters. Some of the work done by Marie Antoinette and Madame Elizabeth during the last two years of their lives is still in existence, and consists of hangings six feet by four. The groundwork of the tapestry is in black wool, with bouquets of flowers, roses, pinks, and convolvulus, on coarse canvas. Some of these hangings were acquired by Rome in 1881. The Empress Josephine, wife of Napoleon Buonaparte, both loved and excelled in the art of needlework, and it certainly was of the greatest possible comfort and solace to her during the years of her retirement. Like Marie Antoinette, she always worked at her embroidery or tapestry when receiving her most intimate friends, and chatting with them late in the evening. After her separation from Napoleon she took up her abode in beautiful Malmaison, where, between botany and needlework, she spent most of her time. The hangings of the saloon were entirely her own work, and the exquisite furniture of her drawing-room was upholstered in embroidery and tapestry worked by herself and her ladies in previous happy years. Needlework was not infrequently put on one side during the evening hours, in order that Josephine, her ladies, and guests, might make lint for the Sisters of Charity, who were greatly in need of it for the wounded soldiers. We now come to our Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. Had it not been for the intense delight she took in the cultivation of decorative needlework, the art itself might have been forgotten. She was not only very fond of needlework, but exceedingly anxious that the Princesses should excel in the art. In the room where she usually sat with her family were some cane-bottom chairs, and as an amusement in their play hours she taught the little Princesses the different stitches on this rough substitute for canvas. As the children grew older a portion of each day was devoted to needlework, and with their mother for teacher they became very accomplished needlewomen. The Queen herself embroidered the dresses which the Princesses wore on the coming of age of the Prince of Wales. They were white crêpe embroidered with silver. She worked several sets of chairs, which are now at Frogmore and Windsor. These she did in her early days. Later in life she employed herself almost entirely with knitting. The Princess Royal, when only ten years old, was such an accomplished needlewoman that she worked a suit of rich embroidery for her brother, the Prince of Wales, which he wore on his birthday.