Both her companions joined their entreaties to hers. All three had instinctively placed themselves before the child’s bed, as if to defend it against the approach of the officers; they wept, they prayed, they exhausted themselves in the humblest and most touching supplications. Such distress might have softened the hardest heart; but to these pitiless tools of the villanous Convention, they appealed in vain. “What is the use of all this outburst?” they demanded at length. “Your child is not going to be killed. You had better give him to us without any more trouble, or we shall find other means of getting him.” In fact, they began to use force against the desperate mother. In the struggle, the improvised bed-curtain was torn down and fell on the head of the sleeping Prince. He awoke, saw at a glance what was happening, and flung himself into his mother’s arms. “Mamma, dear mamma!” he cried, shaking with fright, “do not leave me!” The Queen clasped him close to her breast, as if to protect him, and clung with all her strength to the bedposts. “Pah! We do not fight with women,” said one of the deputies who had not spoken before. “Citizens, let us call up the guard!” “Do not do that!” said Madame Élisabeth, “in the name of Heaven, do not do that! We must submit to forcible demands, but grant us at least time to prepare ourselves. This poor child needs his sleep, and he will not be able to sleep anywhere but here. Let him at least spend the night in this room, and he shall be delivered into your hands early in the morning.” To this touching appeal there was no reply. “Promise me, at least,” said the Queen in a hollow voice, “that he shall remain within the walls of this Tower, and that I shall be permitted to see him every day, if only at meal times.” “We are not obliged to account to you for what we do,” snarled one of the rough fellows, ferociously; “neither is it for you to question the acts of the country. Just because your child is taken from you, why should you act like a fool? Are not our sons marching toward the frontier every day, to have their heads shot off by the enemy you enticed there?” “Oh, I did not entice them there,” replied the Queen; “and you see that my son is much too young to serve his country yet. Some day, God willing, I hope he will be proud to devote his life to France.” The threatening manner of the officers showed the poor mother plainly enough that all her prayers were useless, and she must yield to her cruel fate. With trembling hands she dressed the little Prince, and, although both Princesses assisted her, it took her longer than ever before. Every garment, before it was put on the child, was turned in and out, passed from hand to hand, and wet with bitter tears. In every possible way they strove to defer the dreadful moment of parting, but the officers soon began to lose patience. “Make haste!” they cried. “We can wait no longer!”