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; Abbe 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 Clery
through these glass doors, where also the Municipality watches, and see
the cruelest of scenes:
"At half-past eight, the door of the anteroom 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 toward 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."
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 anteroom, glanced at the
Cerberus Municipals; and, with woman's vehemence, said through her
tears, "_Vous etes tous des scelerats!_" ("You are all scoundrels!")
King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Clery, as he had
been ordered, awoke him. Clery 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 Abbe 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: "_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 neighbors. 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 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'Orleans
Egalite there in cabriolet. Swift messengers, _hoquetons_, speed to the
Town-hall 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 Maelstrom 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; Abbe
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. Abbe
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,
January 21, 1793. He was aged thirty-eight years four months and
twenty-eight days.
Executioner Samson shows the Head: fierce shout of "_Vive la
Republique_" 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'Orleans drives off in his cabriolet: the
Town-hall 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 afterward denied it, sells locks of the hair:
fractions of the puce coat are long after worn in rings.--And so, in
some half-hour it is done and the multitude has all departed.
Pastry-cooks, coffee-sellers, milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian
cries: the world wags on, as if this were a common day. 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.
In the leafy months of June and July, several French Departments
germinate a set of rebellious _paper_-leaves, named Proclamations,
Resolutions, Journals, or Diurnals, "of the Union for Resistance to
Oppression." In particular, the Town of Caen, in Calvados, sees its
paper-leaf of _Bulletin de Caen_ suddenly bud, suddenly establish itself
as Newspaper there; under the Editorship of Girondin National
Representatives!
For among the proscribed Girondins are certain of a more desperate
humor. Some, as Vergniaud, Valaze, Gensonne, "arrested in their own
houses," will await with stoical resignation what the issue may be.
Some, as Brissot, Rabaut, will take to flight, to concealment; which, as
the Paris Barriers are opened again in a day or two, is not yet
difficult. But others there are who will rush, with Buzot, to Calvados;
or far over France, to Lyons, Toulon, Nantes and elsewhither, and then
rendezvous at Caen: to awaken as with war-trumpet the respectable
Departments; and strike down an anarchic "Mountain" Faction; at least
not yield without a stroke at it. Of this latter temper we count some
score or more, of the Arrested, and of the Not-yet-arrested: a Buzot, a
Barbaroux, Louvet, Guadet, Petion, who have escaped from Arrestment in
their own homes; a Salles, a Pythagorean Valady, a Duchatel, the
Duchatel that came in blanket and nightcap to vote for the life of
Louis, who have escaped from danger and likelihood of Arrestment. These,
to the number at one time of Twenty-seven, do accordingly lodge here, at
the "_Intendance_, or Departmental Mansion," of the town of Caen in
Calvados; welcomed by Persons in Authority; welcomed and defrayed,
having no money of their own. And the _Bulletin de Caen_ comes forth,
with the most animating paragraphs: How the Bordeaux Department, the
Lyons Department, this Department after the other is declaring itself;
sixty, or say sixty-nine, or seventy-two respectable Departments either
declaring, or ready to declare. Nay Marseilles, it seems, will march on
Paris by itself, if need be. So has Marseilles Town said, That she will
march. But on the other hand, that Montelimart Town has said, No
thoroughfare; and means even to "bury herself" under her own stone and
mortar first--of this be no mention in _Bulletin de Caen_.
Such animating paragraphs we read in this new Newspaper; and fervors and
eloquent sarcasm: tirades against the "Mountain," from the pen of Deputy
Salles; which resemble, say friends, Pascal's _Provincials_. What is
more to the purpose, these Girondins have got a General-in-chief, one
Wimpfen, formerly under Dumouriez; also a secondary questionable General
Puisaye, and others; and are doing their best to raise a force for war.
National Volunteers, whosoever is of right heart: gather in, ye national
Volunteers, friends of Liberty; from our Calvados Townships, from the
Eure, from Brittany, from far and near: forward to Paris, and extinguish
Anarchy! Thus at Caen, in the early July days, there is a drumming and
parading, a perorating and consulting: Staff and Army; Council; Club of
_Carabots_, Anti-Jacobin friends of Freedom, to denounce atrocious
Marat. With all which, and the editing of _Bulletins_, a National
Representative has his hands full.
At Caen it is most animated; and, as one hopes, more or less animated in
the "Seventy-two Departments that adhere to us." And in a France begirt
with Cimmerian invading Coalitions, and torn with an internal La Vendee,
_this_ is the conclusion we have arrived at: to put down Anarchy by
Civil War! _Durum et durum_, the Proverb says, _non faciunt murum_. La
Vendee burns: Santerre can do nothing there; he may return home and brew
beer. Cimmerian bombshells fly all along the North. That Siege of Mainz
is become famed; lovers of the Picturesque (as Goethe will testify),
washed country-people of both sexes, stroll thither on Sundays, to see
the artillery work and counterwork; "you only duck a little while the
shot whizzes past." Conde is capitulating to the Austrians; Royal
Highness of York, these several weeks, fiercely batters Valenciennes.
For, alas, our fortified Camp of Famars was stormed; General Dampierre
was killed; General Custine was blamed--and indeed is now come to Paris
to give "explanations."
Against all which the Mountain and atrocious Marat must even make head
as they can. They, anarchic Convention as they are, publish Decrees,
expostulatory, explanatory, yet not without severity; they ray forth
Commissioners, singly or in pairs, the olive-branch in one hand, yet
the sword in the other. Commissioners come even to Caen; but without
effect. Mathematical Romme, and Prieur named of the _Cote d'Or_,
venturing thither, with their olive and sword, are packed into prison:
there may Romme lie, under lock and key, "for fifty days"; and meditate
his New Calendar, if he please. Cimmeria, La Vendee, and Civil War!
Never was Republic One and Indivisible at a lower ebb.
Amid which dim ferment of Caen and the World, History specially notices
one thing: in the lobby of the Mansion de l'Intendance, where busy
Deputies are coming and going, a young Lady with an aged valet, taking
grave, graceful leave of Deputy Barbaroux. She is of stately Norman
figure; in her twenty-fifth year; of beautiful still countenance: her
name is Charlotte Corday, heretofore styled D'Armans, while Nobility
still was. Barbaroux has given her a Note to Deputy Duperret--he who
once drew his sword in the effervescence. Apparently she will to Paris
on some errand? "She was a Republican before the Revolution, and never
wanted energy."
A completeness, a decision is in this fair female Figure: "by energy she
means the spirit that will prompt one to sacrifice himself for his
country." What if she, this fair young Charlotte, had emerged from her
secluded stillness, suddenly like a Star; cruel-lovely, with
half-angelic, half-daemonic splendor; to gleam for a moment, and in a
moment be extinguished: to be held in memory, so bright complete was
she, through long centuries! Quitting Cimmerian Coalitions without, and
the dim-simmering Twenty-five Millions within, History will look fixedly
at this one fair Apparition of a Charlotte Corday; will note whither
Charlotte moves, how the little Life burns forth so radiant, then
vanishes swallowed of the Night.
With Barbaroux's Note of Introduction, and slight stock of luggage, we
see Charlotte on Tuesday, July 9th, seated in the Caen Diligence, with a
place for Paris. None takes farewell of her, wishes her Good-journey:
her Father will find a line left, signifying that she has gone to
England, that he must pardon her, and forget her. The drowsy Diligence
lumbers along; amid drowsy talk of Politics, and praise of the Mountain;
in which she mingles not: all night, all day, and again all night. On
Thursday, not long before noon, we are at the bridge of Neuilly; here
is Paris with her thousand black domes, the goal and purpose of thy
journey! Arrived at the Inn de la Providence in the Rue des Vieux
Augustins, Charlotte demands a room; hastens to bed; sleeps all
afternoon and night, till the morrow morning.
On the morrow morning, she delivers her Note to Duperret. It relates to
certain Family Papers which are in the Minister of the Interior's hand;
which a Nun at Caen, an old Convent-friend of Charlotte's, has need of;
which Duperret shall assist her in getting: this then was Charlotte's
errand to Paris? She has finished this, in the course of Friday--yet
says nothing of returning. She has seen and silently investigated
several things. The Convention, in bodily reality, she has seen; what
the Mountain is like. The living physiognomy of Marat she could not see;
he is sick at present, and confined to home.
About eight on the Saturday morning, she purchases a large sheath-knife
in the Palais Royal; then straightway, in the Place des Victoires, takes
a hackney-coach. "To the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, Number 44." It is
the residence of the Citoyen Marat! The Citoyen Marat is ill, and cannot
be seen; which seems to disappoint her much. Her business is with Marat,
then? Hapless beautiful Charlotte; hapless squalid Marat! From Caen in
the utmost West, from Neuchatel in the utmost East, they two are drawing
nigh each other; they two have, very strangely, business together.
Charlotte, returning to her Inn, despatches a short Note to Marat;
signifying that she is from Caen, the seat of rebellion; that she
desires earnestly to see him, and "will put it in his power to do France
a great service." No answer. Charlotte writes another Note, still more
pressing; sets out with it by coach, about seven in the evening,
herself. Tired day-laborers have again finished their Week; huge Paris
is circling and simmering, manifold, according to its vague wont: this
one fair Figure has decision in it; drives straight--toward a purpose.
It is a yellow July evening, we say, the thirteenth of the month; eve of
the Bastille day, when "M. Marat," four years ago, in the crowd of the
Pont Neuf, shrewdly required of that Besenval Hussar-party, which had
such friendly dispositions, "to dismount, and give up their arms, then";
and became notable among Patriot men. Four years: what a road he has
travelled; and sits now, about half-past seven o'clock, stewing in
slipper-bath; sore-afflicted; ill of Revolution Fever--of what other
malady this History had rather not name. Excessively sick and worn, poor
man; with precisely eleven-pence-halfpenny of ready-money, in paper;
with slipper-bath; strong three-footed stool for writing on, the while;
and a squalid--Washerwoman, one may call her: that is his civic
establishment in Medical-School Street; thither and not elsewhither has
his road led him. Not to the reign of Brotherhood and Perfect Felicity;
yet surely on the way toward that?
Hark, a rap again! A musical woman's voice, refusing to be rejected: it
is the Citoyenne who would do France a service. Marat, recognizing from
within, cries, "Admit her!" Charlotte Corday is admitted: "Citoyen
Marat, I am from Caen the seat of rebellion, and wished to speak with
you." "Be seated, _mon enfant_. Now what are the Traitors doing at Caen?
What Deputies are at Caen?"
Charlotte names some Deputies.
"Their heads shall fall within a fortnight," croaks the eager "People's
Friend" clutching his tablets to write.
"_Barbaroux, Petion_" writes he with bare shrunk arm, turning aside in
the bath: _Petion_, and _Louvet_, and--Charlotte has drawn her knife
from the sheath; plunges it, with one sure stroke, into the writer's
heart.
"_A moi, chere amie!_" ("Help, dear!") No more could the Death-choked
say or shriek. The helpful Washerwoman running in, there is no Friend of
the People, or Friend of the Washerwoman left; but his life with a groan
gushes out, indignant, to the shades below.
And so Marat, "People's Friend" is ended: the lone Stylites has been
hurled down suddenly from his Pillar--whitherward? He that made him
knows. Patriot Paris may sound triple and tenfold, in dole and wail;
reechoed by Patriot France; and the Convention, "Chabot pale with
terror, declaring that they are to be all assassinated," may decree him
Pantheon Honors, Public Funeral, Mirabeau's dust making way for him; and
Jacobin Societies, in lamentable oratory, summing up his character,
parallel him to One, whom they think it honor to call "the good
Sansculotte"--whom we name not here; also a Chapel may be made, for the
urn that holds his Heart, in the Place du Carrousel; and new-born
children be named Marat; and Lago-di-Como Hawkers bake mountains of
stucco into unbeautiful Busts; and David paint his Picture, or
Death-Scene; and such other Apotheosis take place as the human genius,
in these circumstances, can devise: but Marat returns no more to the
light of this Sun. One sole circumstance we have read with clear
sympathy, in the old _Moniteur_ Newspaper: how Marat's Brother comes
from Neuchatel to ask of the Convention, "that the deceased Jean Paul
Marat's musket be given him." For Marat, too, had a brother and natural
affections; and was wrapt once in swaddling clothes, and slept safe in a
cradle like the rest of us. Ye children of men! A sister of his, they
say, lives still to this day in Paris.[40]
As for Charlotte Corday, her work is accomplished; the recompense of it
is near and sure. The _chere amie_, and neighbors of the house, flying
at her, she "overturns some movables," entrenches herself till the
gendarmes arrive; then quietly surrenders; goes quietly to the Abbaye
Prison: she alone quiet, all Paris sounding, in wonder, in rage or
admiration, round her. Duperret is put in arrest, on account of her; his
Papers sealed--which may lead to consequences. Fauchet, in like manner;
though Fauchet had not so much as heard of her. Charlotte, confronted
with these two Deputies, praises the grave firmness of Duperret,
censures the dejection of Fauchet.
On Wednesday morning, the thronged Palais de Justice and Revolutionary
Tribunal can see her face; beautiful and calm: she dates it "Fourth day
of the Preparation of Peace." A strange murmur ran through the Hall, at
sight of her, you could not say of what character. Tinville has his
indictments and tape papers; the cutler of the Palais Royal will testify
that he sold her the sheath-knife; "All these details are needless,"
interrupted Charlotte; "it is I that killed Marat."
"By whose instigation?"
"By no one's."
"What tempted you, then?"
"His crimes!"
"I killed one man," added she, raising her voice extremely
(_extremement_), as they went on with their questions, "I killed one man
to save a hundred thousand; a villain to save innocents; a savage wild
beast to give repose to my country. I was a Republican before the
Revolution; I never wanted energy."
There is therefore nothing to be said. The public gazes astonished: the
hasty limners sketch her features, Charlotte not disapproving: the men
of law proceed with their formalities. The doom is Death as a murderess.
To her Advocate she gives thanks; in gentle phrase, in high-flown
classical spirit. To the Priest they send her she gives thanks; but
needs not any shriving, any ghostly or other aid from him.