A gleam of anger flashed in the boy’s beautiful blue eyes, and he refused to take the jews-harp, declaring that he never would play on it. “Never?” cried the cobbler, furiously. “Never? Play on it this moment!” The child persisted in his determination, and the cobbler—the pen almost refuses to write it—the cobbler seized the defenceless child and beat him most cruelly, but without being able to conquer his will. “You can punish me if I do wrong,” cried the poor little Prince, “but you must not strike me; do you understand? For you are stronger than I am.” “I am here to command you, you beast!” roared the cobbler. “I can do what I like! Long live Liberty and Equality!” On Sunday, the 17th of July, 1793, a report spread through Paris that the Dauphin had been carried off. In order to refute this rumor, which had already begun to create disturbances among the lower classes, a deputation was sent to the Temple by the Committee of Public Safety, with orders that the son of the tyrant should be brought down into the garden where he might be seen. The cobbler obeyed, and unceremoniously demanded of the deputies what the real intentions of the Committee were in regard to little Capet. “What have they decided to do with the young wolf? He has been taught to be insolent, and I will see that he is tamed. If he rebels, so much the worse for him, I warrant you! But what is to be done with him in the end? Send him out of the country? No! Kill him? No! Poison him? No! Well, what then?” “We must get rid of him!” was the significant reply. Such, indeed, was the real purpose of the inhuman leaders of the Revolution. They did not want to put the unfortunate Prince to death, they only wished to get rid of him; that is to say, to torture him to death by slow degrees, without anyone being able to say that he had been poisoned, strangled, hanged, or beheaded! As soon as the Dauphin found himself in the garden, he began to call to his mother as loudly as he could. Some of the guards tried to quiet him; but he answered indignantly, pointing to Simon and the deputies: “They will not, they cannot, show me the law that orders me to be separated from my mother.” Astonished at his firmness and moved by his childish affection, one of the guards asked the cobbler whether no one could help the little fellow; but Simon replied sharply: “The young wolf does not submit to the muzzle easily; he might know the law as well as you do, but he is always asking for the reasons of things—as if people were obliged to give him reasons! Now, Capet, keep still, or I will show the citizens how I beat you when you deserve it!” The poor little prisoner turned to the deputies as if to appeal to their compassion, but they coldly turned their backs on him. _He was to be got rid of!_ How could this be possible if he were left to the tender care of his mother?