FOREWORD
Some twelve years ago a translation by Katharine Prescott Wormeley of this thrilling narrative was issued in an elaborate and correspondingly expensive style. The cost of translation and reproduction was considerable, and the work was of necessity sold at a price which practically placed it beyond the reach of the ordinary reader. The present issue, complete in every respect, with all the illustrations of the costly original edition, is published to meet the demand for a less expensive form of a narrative which in tragic interest has perhaps never been excelled.
The Princess Élisabeth, sister of the unfortunate Louis XVI, is almost the only figure which emerges unsullied from the unspeakable corruption of the French Court under Louis XV. She was endowed with a nobility of character which her more admired, though cruelly maligned sister-in-law, Marie Antoinette, scarcely could claim. When the Revolution broke out, she shared the misfortunes of the royal family. She was incarcerated with them in the Temple, but was separated from the king on his trial before the Convention. Finally sentenced to death upon the charge of her devotion to her brother, the king, she met her fate with the same calm fortitude which had marked her life.
Clery's own descriptions of the imprisonment are intensely interesting, as are also those of the Duchesse d'Angoulême, the captive daughter of the unfortunate king.
NEW YORK, April, 1912.
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Illustrated with Ten Photogravures as they appeared in the The Lamb Publishing Co. edition of 1912.
