THE KING ON TRIAL.
As already recounted, John Lebrenn, in his capacity as municipal
officer, was charged on the night of December 10, 1793, with the task of
watching over Louis XVI, detained, with his family, at the Temple.
Occupying a room before the chamber of the ex-King, Lebrenn felt for the
prisoner a sort of compassion, as he reflected that this man, not
without his good inclinations, and endowed with certain undeniable
domestic virtues, had been pushed by his position as King to wrongful
acts which were about to bring down a terrible punishment upon his head.
Louis submitted to his confinement with mingled carelessness and
resignation, rarely displaying either annoyance or anger at the rigorous
surveillance of which he was the object; he hoped that the penalty
pronounced against him by the Convention would not exceed imprisonment
until after the peace, and then banishment. For his wife, his sister,
and his son and daughter, he showed great solicitude; one proof of the
inherent sin of royalty, which could transform a good husband, a good
brother, and a good father--a man without malice in his private
life--into an execrable tyrant, capable of every transgression.
The curtains which screened the glass door separating the ante-chamber
from that occupied by the fallen King accidentally falling apart in the
middle, they revealed to John Lebrenn Louis XVI pacing up and down the
room, although his usual bed-time had long sounded. The King seemed to
be in a state of agitation which accorded ill with his apathetic nature.
On the morrow he was to appear at the bar of the Convention; and during
the day he had learned from Clery, his man-in-waiting, who, due to his
secret connection with the royalists, was informed of their moves, that
a plan was afoot to snatch him from his escort on the way from the
Temple to the Convention. Quite likely to turn his mind from these
thoughts, he opened the door leading into the room guarded by John
Lebrenn, in order to speak with him. The countenance of his watchman
seemed to inspire some confidence in the prisoner; perhaps he remarked
on the young man's features an expression of compassion, easy to
confound with the respectful interest of a subject for a prisoner King.
He stepped into the room of his guard. Not out of respect for the King,
but out of commiseration for the captive man, the soldier rose from the
camp cot on which he had been sitting. Louis addressed him affably, as
follows:
"My friend, I am not disposed to sleep, to-night. If you will, let us
talk together, that my sleeplessness may be rendered less irksome."
"Willingly, Sire," replied Lebrenn.
This was the first time since his captivity that Louis XVI heard one of
his captors address him by that title 'Sire.' They called him habitually
'citizen,' or 'monsieur,' or 'Louis Capet.' Seeking to read the inner
thoughts of the man before him, Louis resumed, after a moment's
silence:
"My friend, I do not think I am mistaken in believing that you pity my
lot? I have been calumniated, but the light will break some day, perhaps
soon: thank God, I still have friends. I know not what it is that tells
me you are one of those faithful and devoted subjects of whom I speak."
"Sire, I am too loyal to leave you a single instant in error. I do not
accept the designation of 'subject,' Sire! I am a citizen of the French
Republic."
"Enough, monsieur; I was mistaken," bitterly replied Louis.
"Nevertheless, I thank you for your frankness."
"My words were dictated by my dignity, first of all; next, by my pity
for the misfortunes, not of the King, but of the man."
"Sir," cried Louis XVI haughtily, "I require no one's pity; the
commiseration of heaven and my conscience are enough. Let us stop
there."
"Sire, I did not seek the honor of this conversation; and, should it
continue, it is well that you be under no illusion as to my sentiments
towards royalty. The Revolution and the Republic have no more devoted
soldier than myself. Now, Sire, I am at your service."
Louis XVI was not utterly lacking in sense; his first resentment past,
he admitted to himself that the conduct of this municipal officer was
all the more praiseworthy, inasmuch as while declaring himself a
revolutionist and a republican, he nevertheless treated a captive King
with respect.
"I was rude just now, I am sorry for it," he said at length. "Hoping for
a moment to discover in you a faithful subject, I found myself face to
face with an enemy. The disappointment was great. Still, let us talk a
little on this subject of your hatred for royalty. What harm have this
royalty, this nobility, this clergy, against which you rail, done to you
and your like?"
"I could, Sire, reply to you in a few words, by facts and not by
railings. But I wish not to wound your preconceived ideas, and above all
to avoid giving you cause to make a sad comparison. This, Sire, is the
third time, in the course of fourteen centuries, that a descendant of my
family encounters one of the heirs of the monarchy of Clovis; and that
under circumstances--"
"Doubtless the circumstances were intensely interesting. What were they?
You pique my curiosity."
"Sire, the circumstances are sinister. It would be painful to me to give
you cause to draw the sad comparison between your present position and
that of the princes, your predecessors."
"Tell me that part of your legends, Monsieur Lebrenn. My curiosity is
highly excited, and my confidence in a brighter future will not be
dimmed by your recital."
"To obey you, Sire, I shall. It was in the year 738 that one of my
ancestors, named Amael, a soldier of fortune and companion to Charles
Martel, found himself in Anjou, at the Convent of St. Saturnine. My
ancestor was commissioned by Charles Martel to keep prisoner in the
convent a poor boy of nine, the only son of Thierry IV, the do-nothing
King, named Childeric. The child soon died, thus extinguishing, in the
last scion of the Merovingians, the stock of Clovis who had covered Gaul
with ruins.[11] Two centuries and a half later, in 987, at the palace
of Compiegne, another of my ancestors, the son of a forester of the
royal domain, found himself alone in the chamber of Louis the Do-nothing
with that prince; he saw him of a sudden faint, become deadly pale, and
writhe in agony. He apostrophized the dying King thus: 'Louis, last year
Hugh the Capet, Count of Paris, had your father Lothaire poisoned by the
Queen his wife, a concubine of the Bishop of Laon. Louis, you are about
to die of poison which your wife, Queen Blanche, has just given you. She
has promised Hugh the Capet, her accomplice, to wed him during the
coming year.' And so it was; the last of the Carlovingians dead, Hugh
the Capet espoused his widow and had himself enthroned King of
France.[12] There, Sire, that is how royal dynasties are founded and
ended."
"These are strange chances, Monsieur Lebrenn," replied Louis XVI. "One
of your ancestors charged to watch the last prince of the dynasty of
Clovis; another ancestor sees perish the last scion of the monarchy of
Charlemagne; and this night you are to watch over me, whom you probably
consider as the last King of the dynasty of Hugh Capet. You will soon
perceive your error."
"Sire," returned John Lebrenn, "you insisted on knowing the occurrences
of which I just spoke, in connection with a question you put to me--"
"Aye, Monsieur Lebrenn; and in spite of the strangeness of the
circumstances with which you have just made me acquainted, I repeat my
question. What harm have royalty, nobility and clergy ever done to you
and yours, that you should hate them so?"
"To begin with, Sire, we know upon what crimes hang the rise and fall
of dynasties; consequently we are unable to love and respect a royalty
imposed upon us by conquest. All monarchies have had a similar origin.
The Count of Boulainvilliers, in this very century, established and
demonstrated that the land of the Gauls belonged of fact and of right to
the King and the nobility, by the grace of God and the right of their
good swords: the Gauls were a vanquished race."
For several seconds Louis did not speak. Then he began brusquely,
"Triumph in your hate, monsieur; you are here as the jailer of the
descendant of those Kings whom you and your fellows have abhorred for
ages."
"The circumstance which has placed me near you, Sire, is of too high an
order of morality to evoke in me a sentiment so miserable as that of
sated hatred."
"What, then, is the feeling which you do entertain, monsieur?"
"A religious emotion, Sire; such as is bred in every honest heart by one
of these mysterious decrees of eternal justice which, sooner or later,
manifests itself in its divine grandeur and seizes the guilty ones, in
whatever rank they may be stationed."
"So, monsieur, you make me a party to the evil my forefathers may have
perpetrated upon their subjects?"
"Monarchs are rightfully regarded as parties to the crimes of their
ancestors, the same as they pretend to be masters of the people by
virtue of divine right and the conquests of those ancestors. All
inheritance carries with it its responsibilities as well as its
benefits. You surely would not dispute that, Sire?"
"To-morrow rebellious subjects will arrogate to themselves the right to
summon their King before them to trial," murmured Louis, without
noticing Lebrenn's question. "The will of heaven be done in all things;
it will punish the wicked, and protect the just."
As Louis pronounced these words, the porter of the Temple entered the
room, saying, as he handed John the letter from advocate Desmarais,
"Citizen officer, here is a letter just brought for you by Citizen
Billaud-Varenne, who enjoined me to take it to you at once."
"Good night, Monsieur Lebrenn," said the King; and turning to the
porter: "Send me my waiting-man Clery, to help me make my toilet. I wish
to retire."
Louis XVI returned to his room, while John Lebrenn, greatly surprised to
recognize Desmarais's hand-writing on the envelope which Billaud-Varenne
had sent him, quickly tore it open, his heart, in spite of himself,
beating loud against his ribs.
The missive read, Lebrenn for a moment thought he was dreaming. He
hesitated to pin any faith to such unlooked-for good fortune, the
realization of his dearest hopes. In vain did he seek to penetrate the
motive for the singular condition placed by the lawyer upon his
marriage. Examined in turn from the viewpoint of duty, of honor and of
delicacy, the condition seemed to him on the whole acceptable; he simply
bound himself for the future to a discretion from which he had not, in
the past, varied a hair's breadth.
Why attempt to paint the ineffable felicity of John Lebrenn? The night
passed for him in a flood of joy.
In the morning he was one of the municipal officers charged to conduct
Louis XVI to the bar of the Convention. Towards nine o'clock Chambon,
Mayor of Paris, accompanied by a court clerk came to deliver to the King
the order to appear before the Convention.
A two-horse coach awaited Louis at the door of the great tower, within
the precincts of the Temple. Generals Santerre and Witenkoff were
stationed on horseback beside the windows. Louis climbed into the
vehicle, and seated himself on the rear seat, beside the Mayor of Paris;
John Lebrenn and one of his colleagues in the Municipal Council occupied
the front. As soon as the carriage issued from the courtyard of the
Temple, the King realized, by the mass of military force with which his
route to the National Convention was hemmed in, that the Committee of
General Safety had been informed of the royalist intrigue, and had taken
steps to make impossible any sudden assault calculated to carry off the
prisoner.
While Louis was on his way to the Convention, that sovereign assembly,
already two hours in session, was calmly and with dignity transacting
public affairs. The trial of the ex-Executive was, no doubt, of prime
importance, but to have changed its order of business, or to interrupt
it without cause before the appearance of the accused, would have given
the Convention almost the appearance of intimidation before the act
which it was about to consummate in the teeth of the allied Kings of
Europe. The countenances of the various factions presented singular
contrasts. The galleries were filled with patriots, who, in common with
the Mountain and the Jacobins, saw no safety for the Republic and the
Revolution save in the condemnation of Louis XVI to the penalty of
death.
The dark and rainy sky of that December day sent its lightning flashes
across the windows of the vast hall. The members of the Right and the
Swamp seemed weighed down by painful preoccupation; the Mountainists
alone were unmoved. One of the latter was speaking to certain articles
of a decree introducing some exceptions into the law on Emigrants, when
a low rumor running through the chamber heralded Louis's approach. The
Mountainist called for order and continued his discussion. The question
was put to a vote and carried. Only then did the president, rising in
his place, say to the Assembly:
"I wish to inform the Assembly that Louis Capet is at the door. Citizen
Representatives, you are about to exercise the right of justice; the
Republic expects of you firm and deliberate action; Europe's eyes are
turned upon you; history will record your actions; posterity will judge
you. The dignity of your session should correspond to the majesty of the
French people; the latter is about, through your instrumentality, to
give a lesson to Kings and a fruitful example for the emancipation of
nations. Citizens in the galleries, forget not that justice presides
only over calm deliberations."
Then, addressing the ushers:
"Bring in the accused."
Generals Santerre and Witenkoff advanced to the bar, leading the deposed
King between them by the arms; they were followed by Mayor Chambon, and
by John Lebrenn and his colleague. Several chairs were arranged near the
bar. Louis XVI removed his overcoat, placed it across the back of his
seat, took off his hat, and sat down, with his hat on his knees. His
large, bulging eyes wandered here and there over the benches of the
members with childish curiosity. Then his face took on its usual
expression of apathy; his eyelids drooped, his loose lip fell down over
his fat and retreating triple chin; he settled himself as best he could
in his chair and seemed lost to his surroundings.
The bustle caused in the chamber and galleries by Louis XVI's entry,
died out little by little, and Defermont, president of the Convention,
took up the examination of the accused on the facts charged against him.
* * * * *
I have just attended the examination of Louis Capet. His answers,
hypocritical, evasive, or spun out of the whole cloth; his denials in
flat contradiction to verified facts; his obliviousness to all decency,
to all dignity, if not as a King, at least as a man, aroused in all
present, as they did in me, only pity for this prince who had neither
the courage to confess nor the nobility to repent his crimes, but who
resorted for his defense to the weapons of the vilest criminal, denial
and falsification.