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The little Dauphin was a brilliant scholar and said such bright things that all the courtiers took great pleasure in asking him questions, that they might hear his answers. One day while saying his lessons, he began to hiss loudly, for which his mother reproved him.

“I was only hissing at myself,” he said, “because I just said my lesson so badly.”

On the evening before the queen’s birthday the king told the Dauphin that he would buy him a handsome bouquet to give his mother for a birthday present, but that he wanted him to write a letter of congratulation to go with it. To his surprise the Dauphin did not show as much pleasure as he expected at this and finally on questioning him he discovered the truth.

“I have got a beautiful everlasting in my garden,” Louis said, “I want to give it to her, please, papa, it will be my bouquet and my letter all together, for when I give it to mamma I shall say, ‘I hope mamma, that you will be like this flower.'”

The idea was so pretty and the boy so eager, that he had his way, and King Louis’ pride in this clever child was great.

He was no prig, no saintly child, this little King Louis Seventeenth to be, he was just a sensitive, affectionate boy, whose winning manner and charm of person attracted all to him, and made him an especial pet of the older people from whose conversation he gathered much information which they never thought he understood.

One day when playing in the garden, full of excited vigour, he was just going to rush through a hedge of roses, when an attendant stopped him and warned him, saying:

“Monseigneur, one of those thorns might blind you or tear your face.”

But the Dauphin persisted, and when halfway through the hedge, called back:

“Thorny paths lead to glory”–a phrase so ominous of the poor little Dauphin’s future that it has ever been remembered as one of the most remarkable of his sayings.

For some time, the Dauphin who was quick to respond to joy or sadness in those around him noticed many signs of distress, not only in the faces of his father and mother, but in those of others whom he saw daily, and many an hour when no one knew it, his childish mind spent in wondering about the situation, trying to understand the heated words he heard, the tears he saw, and sometimes he would creep up to Marie Antoinette and pat her smooth cheek reassuringly, and kiss her lovingly, and though this comforted, it added to the pain of the Queen, who feared for the happiness of the future King of France.

The Reign of Terror was at hand. The Revolutionists, fierce and strong in their murderous frenzy had risen, risen to kill monarchs and monarchy. Louis Sixteenth was on the throne–therefore Louis Sixteenth must go; Marie Antoinette was his wife; she had danced, and spent money like water while they, the people had needed bread, so they said–and Marie Antoinette must go. Little Louis was heir to the throne–that throne whose power must be overthrown, and so Louis the Dauphin must go.

The rulers of France had for generations proved so false to their trust and to their kingly responsibility that the love of the people had at last been changed into hate. Louis Fourteenth and Louis Fifteenth had sinned so deeply against those whom their oath of office bound them to protect, that now at last there was no feeling but revenge and hatred in the hearts of the subjects of the King of France, and on the heads of the reigning sovereigns, Louis Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette fell the horrors of the Reign of Terror, which was now reaching a point where only torture and bloodshed could appease the fiends who were rapidly becoming all-powerful. It was claimed that the taxes collected from the people for the expenses of war and government were being misused for the extravagances and frivolities of the royal family. It was even claimed that the people were starving for bread while the King and Queen were living in luxury, and this because the fiends of the revolution had caused all bake-shops to stop baking bread, so that the cry of starvation might be raised among the people, who could then be incited to storm the palace and demand bread of the royal family.