Place de la Révolution.
To this conclusion, then, hast thou come, O hapless Louis! The
Son of Sixty Kings is to die on the Scaffold by form of law.
Under Sixty Kings this same form of Law, form of Society, has
been fashioning itself together, these thousand years; and has
become, one way and other, a most strange Machine. Surely, if
needful, it is also frightful this Machine; dead, blind; not what
it should be; which, with swift stroke, or by cold slow torture,
has wasted the lives and souls of innumerable men. And behold now
a King himself, or say rather Kinghood in his person, is to
expire here in cruel tortures;—like a Phalaris shut in the belly
of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It is ever so; and thou
shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man: injustice breeds
injustice; curses and falsehoods do verily “return always home,”
wide as they may wander. Innocent Louis bears the sins of many
generations: he too experiences that man’s tribunal is not in
this Earth; that if he had no Higher one, it were not well with
him.
A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the
imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do. And yet at
bottom it is not the King dying, but the Man! Kingship is a coat;
the grand loss is of the skin. The man from whom you take his
Life, to him can the whole combined world do _more?_ Lally went
on his hurdle, his mouth filled with a gag. Miserablest mortals,
doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act Tragedy in
them, in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows, unregarded;
they consume the cup of trembling down to the lees. For Kings and
for Beggars, for the justly doomed and the unjustly, it is a hard
thing to die. Pity them all: thy utmost pity with all aids and
appliances and throne-and-scaffold contrasts, how far short is it
of the thing pitied!
A Confessor has come; Abbé Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom
the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this solemn
mission. Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with
its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine. A hard
scene yet remains: the parting with our loved ones. Kind hearts,
environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left _here!_ Let
the Reader look with the eyes of Valet Cléry, through these
glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches; and see the
cruellest of scenes:
“At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened: the Queen
appeared first, leading her Son by the hand; then Madame Royale
and Madame Elizabeth: they all flung themselves into the arms of
the King. Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted only by
sobs. The Queen made a movement to lead his Majesty towards the
inner room, where M. Edgeworth was waiting unknown to them: ‘No,’
said the King, ‘let us go into the dining-room, it is there only
that I can see you.’ They entered there; I shut the door of it,
which was of glass. The King sat down, the Queen on his left
hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right, Madame Royale almost in
front; the young Prince remained standing between his Father’s
legs. They all leaned towards him, and often held him embraced.
This scene of woe lasted an hour and three-quarters; during which
we could hear nothing; we could see only that always when the
King spoke, the sobbings of the Princesses redoubled, continued
for some minutes; and that then the King began again to
speak.”[603]—And so our meetings and our partings do now end! The
sorrows we gave each other; the poor joys we faithfully shared,
and all our lovings and our sufferings, and confused toilings
under the earthly Sun, are over. Thou good soul, I shall never,
never through all ages of Time, see thee any more!—NEVER! O
Reader, knowest thou that hard word?
For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves
asunder. ‘Promise that you will see us on the morrow.’ He
promises:—Ah yes, yes; yet once; and go now, ye loved ones; cry
to God for yourselves and me!—It was a hard scene, but it is
over. He will not see them on the morrow. The Queen in passing
through the ante-room glanced at the Cerberus Municipals; and
with woman’s vehemence, said through her tears, ‘_Vous êtes tous
des scélérats_.’
King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Cléry, as
he had been ordered, awoke him. Cléry dressed his hair. While
this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept
trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which he is now
to return to the Queen as a mute farewell. At half-past six, he
took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and conference
with Abbé Edgeworth. He will not see his Family: it were too hard
to bear.
At eight, the Municipals enter: the King gives them his Will and
messages and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to
take charge of: he gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred
and twenty-five louis; these are to be returned to Malesherbes,
who had lent them. At nine, Santerre says the hour is come. The
King begs yet to retire for three minutes. At the end of three
minutes, Santerre again says the hour is come. “Stamping on the
ground with his right foot, Louis answers: ‘_Partons_, let us
go.’”—How the rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple
bastions and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be
a widow! He is gone, then, and has not seen us? A Queen weeps
bitterly; a King’s Sister and Children. Over all these Four does
Death also hover: all shall perish miserably save one; she, as
Duchesse d’Angouleme, will live,—not happily.
At the Temple Gate were some faint cries, perhaps from voices of
pitiful women: ‘_Grâce! Grâce!_’ Through the rest of the streets
there is silence as of the grave. No man not armed is allowed to
be there: the armed, did any even pity, dare not express it, each
man overawed by all his neighbours. All windows are down, none
seen looking through them. All shops are shut. No wheel-carriage
rolls this morning, in these streets but one only. Eighty
thousand armed men stand ranked, like armed statues of men;
cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning, but no word or
movement: it is as a city enchanted into silence and stone; one
carriage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound.
Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying:
clatter of this death-march falls sharp on the ear, in the great
silence; but the thought would fain struggle heavenward, and
forget the Earth.
As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la Révolution, once
Place de Louis Quinze: the Guillotine, mounted near the old
Pedestal where once stood the Statue of that Louis! Far round,
all bristles with cannons and armed men: spectators crowding in
the rear; d’Orléans Egalité there in cabriolet. Swift messengers,
_hoquetons_, speed to the Townhall, every three minutes: near by
is the Convention sitting,—vengeful for Lepelletier. Heedless of
all, Louis reads his Prayers of the Dying; not till five minutes
yet has he finished; then the Carriage opens. What temper he is
in? Ten different witnesses will give ten different accounts of
it. He is in the collision of all tempers; arrived now at the
black Mahlstrom and descent of Death: in sorrow, in indignation,
in resignation struggling to be resigned. ‘Take care of M.
Edgeworth,’ he straitly charges the Lieutenant who is sitting
with them: then they two descend.
The drums are beating: ‘_Taisez-vous_, Silence!’ he cries “in a
terrible voice, _d’une voix terrible_.” He mounts the scaffold,
not without delay; he is in puce coat, breeches of grey, white
stockings. He strips off the coat; stands disclosed in a
sleeve-waistcoat of white flannel. The Executioners approach to
bind him: he spurns, resists; Abbé Edgeworth has to remind him
how the Saviour, in whom men trust, submitted to be bound. His
hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come. He
advances to the edge of the Scaffold, “his face very red,” and
says: ‘Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold and
near appearing before God that I tell you so. I pardon my
enemies; I desire that France—’ A General on horseback, Santerre
or another, prances out with uplifted hand: ‘_Tambours!_’ The
drums drown the voice. ‘Executioners do your duty!’ The
Executioners, desperate lest themselves be murdered (for Santerre
and his Armed Ranks will strike, if they do not), seize the
hapless Louis: six of them desperate, him singly desperate,
struggling there; and bind him to their plank. Abbé Edgeworth,
stooping, bespeaks him: ‘Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven.’
The Axe clanks down; a King’s Life is shorn away. It is Monday
the 21st of January 1793. He was aged Thirty-eight years four
months and twenty-eight days.[604]
Executioner Samson shews the Head: fierce shout of _Vive la
République_ rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats
waving: students of the College of Four Nations take it up, on
the far Quais; fling it over Paris. Orleans drives off in his
cabriolet; the Townhall Councillors rub their hands, saying, ‘It
is done, It is done.’ There is dipping of handkerchiefs, of
pike-points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he afterwards
denied it,[605] sells locks of the hair: fractions of the puce
coat are long after worn in rings.[606]—And so, in some half-hour
it is done; and the multitude has all departed. Pastrycooks,
coffee-sellers, milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries:
the world wags on, as if this were a common day. In the
coffeehouses that evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands
with Patriot in a more cordial manner than usual. Not till some
days after, according to Mercier, did public men see what a grave
thing it was.
A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences. On
the morrow morning, Roland, so long steeped to the lips in
disgust and chagrin, sends in his demission. His accounts lie all
ready, correct in black-on-white to the uttermost farthing: these
he wants but to have audited, that he might retire to remote
obscurity to the country and his books. They will never be
audited those accounts; he will never get retired thither.
It was on Tuesday that Roland demitted. On Thursday comes
Lepelletier St. Fargeau’s Funeral, and passage to the Pantheon of
Great Men. Notable as the wild pageant of a winter day. The Body
is borne aloft, half-bare; the winding sheet disclosing the
death-wound: sabre and bloody clothes parade themselves; a
“lugubrious music” wailing harsh _næniæ_. Oak-crowns shower down
from windows; President Vergniaud walks there, with Convention,
with Jacobin Society, and all Patriots of every colour, all
mourning brotherlike.
Notable also for another thing, this Burial of Lepelletier: it
was the last act these men ever did with concert! All Parties and
figures of Opinion, that agitate this distracted France and its
Convention, now stand, as it were, face to face, and dagger to
dagger; the King’s Life, round which they all struck and battled,
being hurled down. Dumouriez, conquering Holland, growls ominous
discontent, at the head of Armies. Men say Dumouriez will have a
King; that young d’Orléans Egalité shall be his King. Deputy
Fauchet, in the _Journal des Amis_, curses his day, more bitterly
than Job did; invokes the poniards of Regicides, of “Arras
Vipers” or Robespierres, of Pluto Dantons, of horrid Butchers
Legendre and Simulacra d’Herbois, to send him swiftly to another
world than _theirs_.[607] This is _Te-Deum_ Fauchet, of the
Bastille Victory, of the _Cercle Social_. Sharp was the
death-hail rattling round one’s Flag-of-truce, on that Bastille
day: but it was soft to such wreckage of high Hope as this; one’s
New Golden Era going down in leaden dross, and sulphurous black
of the Everlasting Darkness!
At home this Killing of a King has divided all friends; and
abroad it has united all enemies. Fraternity of Peoples,
Revolutionary Propagandism; Atheism, Regicide; total destruction
of social order in this world! All Kings, and lovers of Kings,
and haters of Anarchy, rank in coalition; as in a war for life.
England signifies to Citizen Chauvelin, the Ambassador or rather
Ambassador’s-Cloak, that he must quit the country in eight days.
Ambassador’s-Cloak and Ambassador, Chauvelin and Talleyrand,
depart accordingly.[608] Talleyrand, implicated in that Iron
Press of the Tuileries, thinks it safest to make for America.
England has cast out the Embassy: England declares war,—being
shocked principally, it would seem, at the condition of the River
Scheldt. Spain declares war; being shocked principally at some
other thing; which doubtless the Manifesto indicates.[609] Nay we
find it was not England that declared war first, or Spain first;
but that France herself declared war first on both of
them;[610]—a point of immense Parliamentary and Journalistic
interest in those days, but which has become of no interest
whatever in these. They all declare war. The sword is drawn, the
scabbard thrown away. It is even as Danton said, in one of his
all-too gigantic figures: ‘The coalised Kings threaten us; we
hurl at their feet, as gage of battle, the Head of a King.’