420 THE KING ACCUSED. [CHAP. LV. But they were not suffered to enjoy even this quiet life without molestation. Pétion appointed as their warder the ferocious vagabond who had threatened the King's life on June 20th. This fellow took a pleasure in annoying the royal prisoners: sometimes he would sing the Carmagnole before them; sometimes, knowing that the Queen disliked tobacco, he would puff it in her face. Manuel, with a malicious pleasure, related to the King the victories of the Republic, and ordered all his decorations and orders to be removed.1 On December 10th the accusation of the King was read to the Convention. The principal charges alleged against him were: his having suspended the sittings of the National Assembly, June 20th, and subsequently attempted to dictate to and overawe it; having collected troops to support despotism by force; having caused many persons to be killed at the siege of the Bastille, and having ordered the governor to hold out to the last extremity; having summoned the regiment of Flanders to Versailles, followed by the fête of the gardes du corps, &c.; having sanctioned Bouille's massacre at Nanci; having corrupted Mirabeau and others; the flight to Varennes and manifest drawn up on that occasion; having caused the people to be fired on in the Champ de Mars; having kept secret the Convention of Pilnitz, of which he was the head; having paid large sums of money to the emigrants; having purposely neglected the army, thus causing the fall of Longwy and Verdun; having neglected the navy; having provoked the insurrection of August 10th in order to massacre the people, &c. But this last charge was felt to be so shameless that it was subsequently withdrawn.2 On the following day Louis was brought before the Convention to be interrogated on these charges. Some he justified, some he denied; of some he declared that he had no knowledge, of others he threw the responsibility on his Ministers. Nor must it be concealed that his denials were sometimes not only in the face of facts, but even of his own handwriting. He disclaimed all knowledge of an iron safe found in the walls of the Tuileries, and of the papers it contained. Some of these revealed Mirabeau's venality; in consequence of which his bust at the Jacobins was overthrown, and that in the Convention veiled till his guilt should be more fully proved. Journal de Cléry (containing the Récitdes évènements arrivés au Temple, by the King's daughter); Hist. abregé de la Révol, et des malheurs qu'elle a occasionnés, t. ii. liv. ii. 2 Hist. Parl. t. xxi. pp. 259-276. CHAP. LV.] APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE REJECTED. 421 Louis, after a furious resistance of the Mountain, was allowed counsel for his defence; and he selected Target and Tronchet for that purpose. Target being too ill to act, Lamoignon de Malesherbes volunteered to supply his place. When that venerable old man appeared at the Temple, Louis embraced him and exclaimed: "Your sacrifice is the more generous, as you will expose your own life without being able to save mine!" Both Malesherbes and Tronchet being old and feeble, they procured, with the consent of the Assembly, the aid of Desèze, a young and brilliant advocate of Bordeaux. When the King was arraigned, December 26th, Desèze made a powerful speech in his defence. Dividing the heads of accusation into things done before and things done after the King's acceptance of the Constitution, he argued that the former were covered by that act, the latter by the inviolability which the Constitution conferred upon him; and he concluded with a glowing eulogium on Louis's virtues, his benevolence, his mildness, and his justice. After his counsel had concluded, the King read a short address, in which he only protested against the imputation of having shed his subjects' blood on August 10th.1 When Louis had retired it was decreed, on the motion of Couthon, that the debate on the judgment of Louis Capet should be continued without interruption till sentence had been pronounced. The Girondists, either from a sentiment of compassion, or for their own political ends, wished to save the King's life. Vergniaud's speech deprecating regicide was a masterpiece of eloquence. The Girondists proposed an appeal to the people, which, as sovereign, possesses the prerogative of mercy, and ought, therefore, to be consulted. This was opposed by Robespierre and Marat. Robespierre, the cold-blooded and sophistical disciple of Rousseau, now showed, by excellent arguments, the absurdity and inconvenience of consulting the people on affairs of State;2 yet, if they were competent to decide any political question at all, surely none more simple could be submitted to them than that of the condemnation or acquittal of the King. The appeal was lost; and it was decided that the question, as to the King's guilt, should be put on January 14th, 1793. The Convention, during the interval, exhibited scenes of the most extraordinary violence. To work upon the passions of the people and of the deputies, a procession of the wounded of August 10th, accompanied by the widows and orphans of the slain, defiled through the Convention; 1 Hist. Parl. t. xxii. p. 57. 2 Ibid. p. 103 sqq. 422 THE KING CONDEMNED. [CHAP. LV. the orator of the Sections called for the death of Louis, the infamous assassin of thousands of Frenchmen! In discussing the King's fate, the Girondists and Mountain seemed, observes M. L. Blanc, to be contending over his corpse. The members of the different sides rushed one upon another as if about to engage in a general fight; vociferous cries continued for hours, during which nobody could be heard; the President broke his bell in vain attempts to restore order. On January 14th the three following questions were submitted to the Convention:-1. Is Louis guilty? 2. Shall the decision of the Assembly on this point, whatever it may be, be submitted to the people for ratification? 3. What punishment has Louis incurred? The first of these questions was decided almost unanimously in the affirmative. The second was negatived by a majority of 423 against 281. The debate on the King's punishment commenced on January 16th. The public flocked to the sitting, as to a fête or opera; bets were made upon the result; women, elegantly dressed and decked with tricolour ribbons, filled the tribunes; wine and refreshments circulated; any trivial incident, as the appearance of a sick deputy carried in to vote, excited the mirth of this gay and heartless crowd; among it might be observed a few serious faces, while some were marked with ferocity and fury. names. Danton, who had returned to Paris only that day, proposed and carried a motion, that the King's fate should be decided by an absolute majority, instead of a majority of two-thirds, as usual in criminal cases. It had been determined that the members should give their votes by the appel nominal, that is, by calling their This was commenced at eight o'clock on the evening of the 16th. The Girondists had been alarmed by threats of fresh massacres. Already some twenty votes had been recorded, most of them for death, when the name of Vergniaud was called, the eloquent leader of the Gironde. A breathless silence prevailed; his vote would probably guide the rest of his party, and thus decide the King's fate. It was for death! but he asked, with a sort of shuffling evasion, as if ashamed of his vote, whether execution would be deferred? Philippe Egalité pronounced his relative's condemnation without any visible emotion, observing: "Guided only by duty, and persuaded that those who have attempted, or shall attempt, anything contrary to the sove 1 Hist. Parl. p. 131 sqq. CHAP. LV.] EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI. 423 reignty of the people deserve to die, I vote for death!" The appel lasted till the evening of January 17th, when the votes were declared. As 721 members were present, the absolute majority would be 361, and exactly this number of members voted for death unconditionally; 26 more pronounced the same sentence, but demanded a discussion whether it should not be deferred; thus making the total majority 387. On the other side, 334 voted for banishment, imprisonment, &c., including 46 who were for death with reprieve. Vergniaud, as President of the Convention, now pronounced the sentence of death. The King's counsel offered some objections to the proceedings, but they were overborne by Robespierre, and the sitting was closed. On January 19th Brissot and others proposed that the King's execution should be deferred, on the political ground that it would alienate the friends of the Revolution in England and America; but Barère opposed the motion, and it was decided by a majority of 380 against 310 that Louis should be executed within twenty-four hours." Next day the Executive Council, and Garat, as Minister of Justice, officially announced to the King his sentence, which he had previously learnt from Malesherbes. Louis heard his doom without emotion. He made three requests a respite of three days to prepare himself for death, the services of a priest, and an interview with his family: the last two only were granted. He slept peacefully the night before his execution, and being awakened at five in the morning (January 21st) by his faithful valet, Cléry, received the sacrament at the hands of the Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont. Having had an interview the day before with his family, he resolved not to see them again, in order to spare them the pain of a last separation. At nine o'clock Santerre arrived with a military force to conduct Louis to the scaffold. The Abbé Edgeworth seems to have entertained a hope that he would be rescued, and something of this sort had been mentioned to the King by M. de Malesherbes; but Louis expressed his disapproval of any such attempt, and said that he would rather die. The melancholy procession passed in unbroken silence through the streets, except a few cries of "Mercy! mercy!" from some women. It arrived at the foot of the scaffold, which had been erected in the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde), a few minutes before ten 2 Ibid. p. 269. 1 Hist. Parl. t. xxiii. p. 206. 424 OPINION OF EUROPE. [CHAP. LV. o'clock. A little delay occurred through the King's unwillingness to take off his coat, and again from his repugnance to have his hands tied. He attempted to address the people, but the brutal Santerre drowned his voice by ordering the drums to beat, and all that could be heard was a protestation that he died innocent. After the guillotine had done its office, the executioner, Sanson, held up the King's head, and the crowd shouted, "The Republic for ever!" Louis XVI. was thirty-nine years of age, of which he had reigned eighteen. His remains were carried to the church of the Madeleine, and consumed with quicklime. When the catastrophe was accomplished Marat exclaimed, "We have burnt our ships behind us!" And indeed nothing was now left for the Jacobins but their own extermination or that of their enemies. The murder of Louis XVI., for such it must be called, created a great sensation throughout Europe. A general mourning was assumed in England and other countries. The Empress of Russia interdicted all commerce with France, and expelled the French from her dominions, unless they abjured revolutionary principles, and renounced all commerce with their native country. Spain prepared to take up arms, nor could the sentiments of the Court of Naples be doubtful, where Caroline of Austria, sister of Marie Antoinette, ruled in the name of her husband. The Papal Court had denounced the proceedings in France before the King's execution, and Basseville, the French Secretary of Legation at Rome, had been murdered for taking down the royal arms at his hotel, and substituting those of the Republic. Spain alone, however, of all the neutral Powers, had made any attempt to save Louis; but the Convention refused to consider the application. The Marquis of Lansdowne and Mr. Fox in the British Parliament had moved for some intervention in favour of the King, and the opposition of Mr. Pitt and the Ministry has been attributed by some French historians to the most sinister and unworthy motives. But, as Mr. Pitt stated in the House of Commons, the 1 M. L. Blanc, who represents the conduct of Louis on this occasion in the most invidious light, affirms among other things that he had a sort of struggle with the executioner; but nothing of the kind appears in the extracts from the newspapers in the Hist. Parl. t. xxiii. p. 298 sq., giving an account of his death. M. Blanc seems strangely to have overlooked Sanson's letter to the editor of the Thermomètre du jour. Surely there could not have been better authority. See Croker, p. 255. 2 Von Sybel, vol. ii. p. 295 (Eng. Transl.). 3 Homme d'état, t. ii. p. 191; Hist des Traités, t. v. p. 195. Garden, Hist. Parl. t. xxii. p. 98; Montgaillard, t. iii. p. 314. 5 Michelet, Hist. de la Rév. Fr. t. v. p. 318; L. Blanc, ibid. t. viii. p. 92, &c. M. Blanc charges Pitt with displaying |