“Go on.”
“The revolutionaries—perhaps even Robespierre himself—drew up a confession they insisted he sign. When he refused, they beat him again. Day after day.”
“What sort of confession?”
“In it, he claimed to have been seduced by his mother and debauched by his sister and his aunt, Elisabeth. They wanted to use it at the Queen’s trial.”
“Did he sign it?”
“In the end, yes.”
“But surely no one believed such nonsense?”
Serena shrugged. “Far too many people will believe anything of those they hate, no matter how absurd or patently fabricated it may be. And to the revolutionaries, the Bourbons became the personification of evil.”
“What happened after he did as they demanded and signed the confession?”
“I’ve heard his jailors had promised that if he signed, he’d be allowed to rejoin what was left of his family. But it was a promise they did not keep. His jailor was a member of the Paris Commune, a cobbler named Antoine Simon. Simon’s instructions were to erase all traces of gentility and pride in the boy. On good days, Simon and his wife taught him the language of the gutters, plied him with wine, put a bonnet rouge on his head, and taught him to sing the Marseillaise. On bad days, they beat him, just for the fun of it.”
Sebastian took a swallow of his ale, but it tasted bitter and flat on his tongue.
Serena said, “Yet as bad as all that was, it eventually grew worse. Simon and his wife were replaced with new jailors, who starved the boy and refused to empty his slop bucket. The window of his cell was blocked up, depriving the child of both light and air. He grew increasingly ill. With no one to care for him, he was simply left to lie in his own excrement. He eventually lost the ability either to walk or speak.” Serena glanced over at Sebastian. “You’re certain you want to hear this?”
“Yes.”
Serena nodded. “We know these things because, after the events of Thermidor, inquiries were made. A representative of the National Convention, a man by the name of Barras, was sent to visit the children in the Temple. He found the Dauphin lying on a filthy cot in a dark, noisome room so foul no one could even enter it. His skin was gray-green, his rags and hair alive with vermin, his stomach bloated from starvation, his half-naked body covered with bruises and welts from his endless beatings.”
“And his mind?”
“He was visibly terrified of anyone and everyone who came near him, and completely unable to speak.”
“So what happened?”
“At Barras’s insistence, the child was given a new jailor, a man named Laurent, who was ordered to see that the boy was bathed and fed, and his cell cleaned. They say that on occasion Laurent would even carry the boy up to the Tower’s battlements so that he could breathe the fresh air and watch the birds flying in the sky. But it was all too late. The boy was desperately ill. He died.”
“And how was Marie-Thérèse treated all this time?”
The question seemed to puzzle the courtier. “She remained in the room she had shared with her mother and aunt before their executions. It was a prison cell, yes, and somewhat shabby. But it was nothing like the hellhole in which her brother was left to rot. The walls were papered, the bed canopied, the mantel of white marble—although the hearth was often cold, and for a time she was forbidden both candles and a tinderbox.”
“She was not starved or beaten?”
“She was not well fed, but she was not starved—or beaten.”
Sebastian was silent, his gaze on the shadows near the stairs, where the bricklayer and his erstwhile dancing partner were locked in a passionate embrace.
After a moment, Serena said, “You think what happened nearly twenty years ago has something to do with the murder of the French physician?”
“You don’t?”
Serena’s tongue flicked out to touch her dry lips. “I have heard—I don’t know that it is true, mind you, but . . .”
“Yes?” prompted Sebastian.
“I have heard that one of the doctors who performed the autopsy wrapped the Dauphin’s heart in his handkerchief and took it away with him.”
“Good God. Why?”
“It is traditional, in France, to preserve the hearts of the members of the royal family. The bodies of the kings and queens of France were buried in Saint-Denis. But their hearts and other organs were ceremoniously preserved elsewhere, most typically at Val-de-Grace.”
Sebastian studied the molly’s delicate features. “What are you suggesting?”
But Serena only shook her head, her lips pressed firmly together as if some thoughts were too terrible to be spoken aloud.