THREE:With calmness they received the order to go to the Conciergerie, which was, they knew, their death sentence. When they were sent for, the Duchess, who was reading the Imitation of Christ, hastily wrote on a scrap of paper, My children, courage and prayer, put it in the place where she left off, and gave the book to the Duchesse dOrlans to give to her daughters if her life were spared. As she said their names, for once her calmness gave way. The book was wet with her tears, which left their mark upon it always.And step by step she was drawing away from the Revolution. She had had enough of it, and she began to feel that disgust and horror were taking the place of the frantic admiration she had entertained for it in former years. And the finishing stroke was put by hearing herself called, as she walked with Tallien in Cours la Reine one evening, Notre Dame de Septembre.
