Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton; Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton [Hrsg.]: The art of needle-work from the earliest ages: including some notices of the ancient historical tapestries (London: Henry Colburn Publishers, 1841)

392 NEEDLEWORK OF ROYAL LADIES.
should be deprived of all scissors, razors, knives-—
instruments usually taken from criminals ; and that
the strictest search should be made for the same, as
well on their persons as in their apartments. The
king took out of his pocket a knife and a small mo-
rocco pocket-book, from which be gave the pen-
knife and scissors. The officer searched every
corner of the apartments, and carried off the razors,
the curling-irons, the powder-scraper, instruments
for the teeth, and many articles of gold and silver.
They took away from the princesses their knitting-
needles and all the little articles they used for their
embroidery. The unhappy queen and princesses
were the more sensible of the loss of the little in-
struments taken from them, as they were in conse-
quence forced to give up all the feminine handi-
works which till then had served to beguile prison
hours. At this time the king’s coat became ragged,
and as the Princess Elizabeth, his sister, was mend-
ing it, as she had no scissors, the king observed
that she had to bite off the thread with her teeth-
‘ What a reverse ! ’ said the king, looking tenderly
upon her ; ‘ you were in want of nothing at your
pretty house at Montreuil.’ ‘ Ah, brother!’ she
replied, ‘ can I feel a regret of any kind while I
share your misfortunes?’”
The Empress Josephine is said to have played
and sung with exquisite feeling : her dancing is
said to have been perfect. She exercised her pencil,
and—though such be not now antiquated for an
elegante — her needle and embroidery-frame, with
beautiful address.
Towards the close of her eventful career, when.