number of Mountaineers who, on this occasion, acted with the
greatest sincerity, and only as republicans, in whose eyes
Louis XVI. appeared guilty with respect to the revolution; and
a dethroned king was dangerous to a young democracy. But this
party would have been more clement, had it not had to ruin the
Gironde at the same time with Louis XVI. ... Party motives and
popular animosities combined against this unfortunate prince.
Those who, two months before, would have repelled the idea of
exposing him to any other punishment than that of
dethronement, were stupefied; so quickly does man lose in
moments of crisis the right to defend his opinions! ... After
the 10th of August, there were found in the offices of the
civil list documents which proved the secret correspondence of
Louis XVI. with the discontented princes, with the emigration,
and with Europe. In a report, drawn up at the command of the
legislative assembly, he was accused of intending to betray
the state and overthrow the revolution. He was accused of
having written, on the 16th April, 1791, to the bishop of
Clermont, that if he regained his power he would restore the
former government, and the clergy to the state in which they
previously were; of having afterwards proposed war, merely to
hasten the approach of his deliverers; ... of having been on
terms with his brothers, whom his public measures had
discountenanced; and, lastly, of having constantly opposed the
revolution. Fresh documents were soon brought forward in
support of this accusation. In the Tuileries, behind a panel
in the wainscot, there was a hole wrought in the wall, and
closed by an iron door. This secret closet was pointed out by
the minister, Roland, and there were discovered proofs of all
the conspiracies and intrigues of the court against the
revolution; projects with the popular leaders to strengthen
the constitutional power of the king, to restore the ancient
regime and the aristocrats; the manœuvres of Talon, the
arrangements with Mirabeau, the propositions accepted by
Bouillé, under the constituent assembly, and some new plots
under the legislative assembly. This discovery increased the
exasperation against Louis XVI. Mirabeau's bust was broken by
the Jacobins, and the convention covered the one which stood
in the hall where it held its sittings. For some time there
had been a question in the assembly as to the trial of this
prince, who, having been dethroned, could no longer be
proceeded against. There was no tribunal empowered to
pronounce his sentence, no punishment which could be inflicted
on him: accordingly, they plunged into false interpretations
of the inviolability granted to Louis XVI., in order to
condemn him legally. ... The committee of legislation,
commissioned to draw up a report on the question as to whether
Louis XVI. could be tried, and whether he could be tried by
the convention, decided in the affirmative. ... The discussion
commenced on the 13th of November, six days after the report
of the committee. ... This violent party [the Mountain], who
wished to substitute a coup d'etat for a sentence, to follow
no law, no form, but to strike Louis XVI. like a conquered
prisoner, by making hostilities even survive victory, had but
a very feeble majority in the convention; but without, it was
strongly supported by the Jacobins and the commune.
Notwithstanding the terror which it already inspired, its
murderous suggestions were repelled by the convention; and the
partisans of inviolability, in their turn, courageously
asserted reasons of public interest at the same time as rules
of justice and humanity. They maintained that the same men
could not be judges and legislators, the jury and the
accusers. ... In a political view, they showed the
consequences of the king's condemnation, as it would affect
the anarchical party of the kingdom, rendering it still more
insolent; and with regard to Europe, whose still neutral
powers it would induce to join the coalition against the
republic. But Robespierre, who during this long debate
displayed a daring and perseverance that presaged his power,
appeared at the tribune to support Saint Just, to reproach the
convention with involving in doubt what the insurrection had
decided, and with restoring, by sympathy and the publicity of
a defence, the fallen royalist party. 'The assembly,' said
Robespierre, 'has involuntarily been led far away from the
real question. Here we have nothing to do with trial: Louis is
not an accused man; you are not judges, you are, and can only
be statesmen. You have no sentence to pronounce for or against
a man, but you are called on to adopt a measure of public
safety; to perform an act of national precaution. A dethroned
king is only fit for two purposes, to disturb the tranquillity
of the state, and shake its freedom, or to strengthen one or
the other of them. Louis was king; the republic is founded;
the famous question you are discussing is decided in these few
words. Louis cannot be tried; he is already tried, he is
condemned, or the republic is not absolved.' He required that
the convention should declare Louis XVI. a traitor towards the
French, criminal towards humanity, and sentence him at once to
death, by virtue of the insurrection. The Mountaineers, by
these extreme propositions, by the popularity they attained
without, rendered condemnation in a measure inevitable. By
gaining an extraordinary advance on the other parties, it
obliged them to follow it, though at a distance. The majority
of the convention, composed in a large part of Girondists, who
dared not pronounce Louis XVI. inviolable, and of the Plain,
decided, on Pétion's proposition, against the opinion of the
fanatical Mountaineers and against that of the partisans of
inviolability, that Louis XVI. should be tried by the
convention. Robert Lindet then made, in the name of the
commission of the twenty-one, his report respecting Louis XVI.
The arraignment, setting forth the offences imputed to him,
was drawn up, and the convention summoned the prisoner to its
bar."
_F. A. Mignet,
History of the French Revolution,
chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapter 17._
_A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
books 32-33 (volume 2)._
_A. de Beauchesne,
Louis XVII.: His Life, his Suffering, his Death,
book 9._
{1285}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-January).
The King's Trial and death sentence.
"On December 11, the ill-fated monarch, taken from his prison
to his former palace, appeared at the bar of his republican
judges, was received in silence and with covered heads, and
answered interrogatories addressed to him as 'Louis Capet,'
though with an air of deference. His passive constancy touched
many hearts. ... On the 26th the advocates of the King made an
eloquent defence for their discrowned client, and Louis added,
in a few simple words, that the 'blood of the 10th of August
should not be laid to his charge.' The debates in the Assembly
now began, and it soon became evident that the Jacobin faction
were making the question the means to further their objects,
and to hold up their opponents to popular hatred. They
clamored for immediate vengeance on the tyrant, declared that
the Republic could not be safe until the Court was smitten on
its head, and a great example had been given to Europe, and
denounced as reactionary and as concealed royalists all who
resisted the demands of patriotism. These ferocious invectives
were aided by the expedients so often employed with success,
and the capital and its mobs were arrayed to intimidate any
deputies who hesitated in the 'cause of the Nation.' The
Moderates, on the other hand, were divided in mind; a
majority, perhaps, condemning the King, but also wishing to
spare his life: and the Gironde leaders, halting between their
convictions, their feelings, their desires, and their fears,
shrank from a courageous and resolute course. The result was
such as usually follows when energy and will encounter
indecision. On January 14 [the 15th, according to Thiers and
others], 1793, the Convention declared Louis XVI. guilty, and
on the following day [the speaking and voting lasted through
the night of the 16th and the day after it] sentence of
immediate death was pronounced by a majority of one [but the
minority, in this view, included 26 votes that were cast for
death but in favor of a postponement of the penalty, on
grounds of political expediency], proposals for a respite and
an appeal to the people having been rejected at the critical
moment. The votes had been taken after a solemn call of the
deputies at a sitting protracted for days; and the spectacle
of the vast dim hall, of the shadowy figures of the awestruck
judges meting out the fate of their former Sovereign, and tier
upon tier of half-seen faces, looking, as in a theatre, on the
drama below, and breaking out into discordant clamor, made a
fearful impression on many eye-witnesses. One vote excited a
sensation of disgust even among the most ruthless chiefs of
the Mountain, though it was remarked that many of the
abandoned women who crowded the galleries shrieked
approbation. The Duke of Orleans, whose Jacobin professions
had caused him to be returned for Paris, with a voice in which
effrontery mingled with terror, pronounced for the immediate
execution of his kinsman. The minister of justice--Danton had
resigned--announced on the 20th the sentence to the King. The
captive received the message calmly, asked for three days to
get ready to die (a request, however, at once refused), and
prayed that he might see his family and have a confessor."
_W. O'C. Morris,
The French Revolution, and First Empire,
chapter 5._
ALSO IN:
_A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 2, pages 44-72._
_A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Private Memoirs, relative to the last year of Louis XVI.,
chapters 39-40._
_J. B. Cléry,
Journal of Occurrences at the Temple._
FRANCE: A. D. 1792-1793 (December-February).
Determination to incorporate the Austrian Netherlands and to
attack Holland.
Pitt's unavailing struggle for peace.
England driven to arms.
War with the Maritime Powers declared by the French.
"Since the beginning of December, the French government had
contracted their far-reaching schemes within definite limits.
They were compelled to give up the hope of revolutionizing the
German Empire and establishing a Republic in the British
Islands; but they were all the more determined in the resolve
to subject the countries which had hitherto been occupied in
the name of freedom, to the rule of France. This object was
more especially pursued in Belgium by Danton and three other
deputies, who were sent as Commissioners of the Convention to
that country on the 30th of November. They were directed to
enquire into the condition of the Provinces, and to consider
Dumouriez's complaints against Pache [the Minister at War] and
the Committee formed to purchase supplies for the army."
Danton became resolute in the determination to incorporate
Belgium and pressed the project inexorably. "It was a matter
of course that England would interpose both by word and deed
directly France prepared to take possession of Belgium. ...
England had guaranteed the possession of Belgium to the
Emperor in 1790--and the closing of the Scheldt to the Dutch,
and its political position in Holland to the House of Orange
in 1788. Under an imperative sense of her own interests, she
had struggled to prevent the French from gaining a footing in
Antwerp and Ostend. Prudence, fidelity to treaties, the
retrospect of the past and the hopes of the future--all called
loudly upon her not to allow the balance of Europe to be
disturbed, and least of all in Belgium."
_H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 5, chapter 5 (volume 2)._
"The French Government resolved to attack Holland, and ordered
its generals to enforce by arms the opening of the Scheldt. To
do this was to force England into war. Public opinion was
already pressing every day harder upon Pitt [see ENGLAND: A.
D. 1793-1796]. ... Across the Channel his moderation was only
taken for fear. ... The rejection of his last offers indeed
made a contest inevitable. Both sides ceased from diplomatic
communications, and in February 1793 France issued her
Declaration of War."
_J. R. Green,
History of the English People,
book 9, chapter 4 (volume 4)._
ALSO IN:
_W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England in the 18th Century,
chapter 22 (volume 6)._
_Earl Stanhope,
Life of Pitt,
chapter 16 (volume 2)._
_Despatches of Earl Gower,
page 256-309._
{1286}
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (January).
The execution of the king.
"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? ... 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
cruelest 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.' ... 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 met!--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
étes 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? ... At the Temple Gate were some faint
cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful women: Grace! Grace!
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. 80,000 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 clock strikes ten, behold the Place de la
Revolution, 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. ... 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 gray, 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 38 years four months and 28 days.
{1287}
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shouts 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. D'Orléans drives off in
his cabriolet: the Townhall Councillors rub their hands,
saying, 'It is done, It is done.' ... In the coffee-houses
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. ... 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."
_T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 2, chapter 8._
FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (February-April).
Increasing anarchy.
Degradation of manners.
Formation of the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal.
Treacherous designs of Dumouriez.
His invasion of Holland.
His defeat at Neerwinden and retreat.
His flight to the enemy.