EXECUTION OF THE KING.
1792-1793
Ominous preparations.--The king summoned before the Convention.--The
king before the Convention.--Charges brought against him.--The king
begs for a morsel of bread.--He is taken back to prison.--Advance
of the allies.--Clamor for the king's life.--The king condemned
to death.--Emotion of Malesherbes.--The king's demands.--The
Abbe Edgeworth.--The last interview.--Anguish of the royal
family.--The last embrace.--The separation.--The king receives
the sacrament.--Mementoes to his family.--The king summoned to
execution.--Brutality of the officers.--The brutal jailer.--The
king conducted to execution.--A sad procession.--Admirable calmness
of the king.--Attempt to rescue the king.--Its failure.--The
guillotine.--Associations.--The king's thoughtfulness.--He undresses
himself.--The king ascends the scaffold.--His speech.--The last
act in the tragedy.--Burial of the king's body.--The blood-red
obelisk.--Character of Louis.
On the 11th of December, 1792, just four months after the royal family
had been consigned to the Temple, as the captives were taking their
breakfast, a great noise of the rolling of drums, the neighing of
horses, and the tramp of a numerous multitude was heard around the
prison walls; soon some one entered, and informed the king that these
were the preparations which were making to escort him to his trial. The
king knew perfectly well that this was the step which preceded his
execution, and, as he thought of the awful situation of his family, he
threw himself into his chair and buried his face in his hands, and for
two hours remained in that attitude immovable. He was roused from his
painful revery by the entrance of the officers to conduct him to the bar
of his judges, from whom he was aware he could expect no mercy. "I
follow you," said the king, "not in obedience to the orders of the
Convention, but because my enemies are the more powerful." He put on his
brown great-coat and hat, and, silently descending the stairs to the
door of the tower, entered a carriage which was there awaiting him. As
he had long been deprived of his razors, his chin and cheeks were
covered with masses of hair. His garments hung loosely around his
emaciated frame, and all dignity of aspect was lost in the degraded
condition to which designing cruelty had reduced him. The captive
monarch was escorted through the streets by regiments of cavalry,
infantry, and artillery, every man furnished with fifteen rounds of
ammunition to repel any attempts at a rescue. A countless throng of
people lined the streets through which the illustrious prisoner was
conveyed. The multitude gazed upon the melancholy procession in profound
silence. He soon stood before the bar of the Convention. "Louis," said
the president, "the French nation accuses you. You are about to hear the
charges which are to be preferred. Louis, be seated." The king listened
with perfect tranquillity and self-possession to a long catalogue of
accusations, in which his efforts to sustain the falling monarchy, and
his exertions to protect himself and family from insults and death, were
construed into crimes against the nation.
The examination of the king was long, minute, and was conducted by those
who were impatient for his blood. At its close, the king, perfectly
exhausted by mental excitement and the want of refreshment, was led back
into the waiting-room of the Convention. He was scarcely able to stand
for faintness. He saw a soldier eating a piece of bread. He approached,
and, in a whisper, begged him for a piece, and ate it. Here was the
monarch of thirty millions of people, in the heart of his proud capital,
and with all his palaces around him, actually begging bread of a poor
soldier. The king was again placed in the carriage, and conveyed back to
his prison in the Temple. As the cortege passed slowly by the palace of
the Tuileries, the scene of all his former grandeur and happiness, the
king gazed long and sadly on the majestic pile, so lost in thought that
he heeded not, and apparently heard not the insulting cries which were
resounding around him. As the king entered the Temple, he raised his
eyes most wistfully to the queen's apartment, but the windows were so
barred that no glances could be interchanged. The king was conducted to
his apartment, and was informed that he could no longer be permitted to
hold any communication whatever with the other members of his family.
He contrived, however, by means of a tangle of thread, in which was
inclosed a piece of paper, perforated by a needle, to get a note to the
queen, and to receive a few words in return. He, however, felt that his
doom was sealed, and began from that hour to look forward to his
immortality. He made his will, in which he spoke in most affecting terms
of his wife, and his children, and his enemies, commending them all to
the protection of God.
An indescribable gloom now reigned throughout Paris. The allied armies
on the frontiers were gradually advancing. The French troops were
defeated. It was feared that the Royalists would rise, and join the
invaders, and rescue the king. Desperadoes rioted through the streets,
clamoring for the blood of their monarch. With knives and bludgeons they
surrounded the Convention, threatening the lives of all if they did not
consign the king to the guillotine. The day for the final decision
came--Shall the king live or die? On that day the heart of the
metropolis throbbed as never before. It was the 20th of January, 1793.
The Convention had already been in uninterrupted session for fifteen
hours. The clamor of the tumultuous and threatening mob gave portentous
warning of the doom which awaited the members of the Assembly should
they dare to spare the life of the king. One by one the deputies mounted
the tribune as their names were called in alphabetical order, and gave
their vote. For some time death and exile seemed equally balanced. The
results of the vote were read. The Convention comprised seven hundred
and twenty-one voters, three hundred and thirty-four of whom voted for
exile, and three hundred and eighty-seven for death.
Louis sat alone in his prison, calmly awaiting the decision. He laid
down that night knowing that his doom was sealed, and yet not knowing
what that doom was. Malesherbes, the venerable friend who had
volunteered for his defense, came to communicate the mournful tidings.
He fell at the king's feet so overcome with emotion that he could not
speak. The king understood the language of his silence and his tears,
and uttered himself the sentence "Death." But a few moments elapsed
before the officers of the Convention came, in all the pomp and parade
of the land, to communicate to the king his doom to the guillotine in
twenty-four hours. With perfect calmness, and fixing his eye immovably
upon his judges he heard the reading of the sentence. The reading
concluded, the king presented a paper to the deputies, which he first
read to them in the clear and commanding tones of a monarch upon his
throne, demanding a respite of three days, in order to prepare to appear
before God; also permission to see his family, and to converse with a
priest. The Convention, angry at these requests, informed the king that
he might see any priest he pleased, and that he might see his family,
but that the execution must take place in twenty-four hours from the
time of the sentence. Darkness had again fallen upon the city, when the
minister of religion, M. Edgeworth, was led through the gloomy streets,
to administer the consolations of piety to the condemned monarch. As he
entered the apartment of the king, he fell at his feet and burst into
tears. Louis for a moment wept, when, recovering himself, he said,
"Pardon me this momentary weakness. I have so long lived among enemies,
that habit has rendered me insensible to hatred. The sight of a faithful
friend restores my sensibility, and moves me to tears in spite of
myself." A long conversation ensued, in which the king inquired, with
the greatest interest, respecting the fate of his numerous friends. He
read his will with the utmost deliberation, his voice faltering only
when he alluded to his wife, children, and sister. At seven o'clock he
was to have his last agonizing interview with his beloved family, and
the thought of this agitated him far more than the prospect of the
scaffold.
The hour for the last sad meeting arrived. The king, having prepared his
heart by prayer for the occasion, descended into a small unfurnished
room, where he was to meet his family. The door opened. The queen,
leading his son, and Madame Elizabeth, leading his daughter, with
trembling, fainting steps, entered the room. Not a word was uttered. The
king threw himself upon a bench, drew the queen to his right side, his
sister to the left, and their arms encircled his neck, and their heads
hung upon his breast. The son climbed upon his father's knee, clinging
with his arms frantically to his bosom; and the daughter, throwing
herself at his feet, buried her head in his lap, her beautiful hair, in
disordered ringlets, falling over her shoulders. A long half hour thus
passed, in which not one single articulate word was spoken, but the
anguish of these united hearts was expressed in cries and lamentations
which pierced through the stone walls of their prison, and were heard
by passers by in the streets. But human nature could not long endure
this intensity of agony. Total exhaustion ensued. Their tears dried upon
their cheeks; embraces, kisses, whispers of tenderness and love, and woe
ensued, which lasted for two hours.
The king then clasped them each in a long embrace, pressing his lips to
their cheeks, and prepared to retire. Clinging to each other in an
inseparable group, they approached the stair-case which the king was to
ascend, when their piercing, heart-rending cries were renewed. The king,
summoning all his fortitude to his aid, tore himself from them, and, in
most tender accents, cried "_Adieu! adieu!_" hastily ascended the stairs
and disappeared, having partially promised that he would see them again
in the morning. The princess royal fell fainting upon the floor, and was
borne insensible to her room. The king, reaching his apartment, threw
himself into a chair, and exclaimed, "What an interview I have had! Why
do I love so fondly? Alas! why am I so fondly loved? But we have now
done with time, let us occupy ourselves with eternity."
The hour of midnight had now arrived. The king threw himself upon his
bed, and slept as calmly, as peacefully, as though he had never known
a sorrow. At five o'clock he was awakened, and received the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper. Then, taking a small parcel from his bosom, and
removing his wedding ring from his finger, he said to an attendant,
"After my death, I wish you to give this seal to my son, this ring to
the queen. Say to the queen, my dear children, and my sister, that I had
promised to see them this morning, but that I desired to spare them the
agony of this bitter separation twice over. How much it has cost me to
part without receiving their last embraces!" Here his utterance was
impeded by sobs. He then called for some scissors, that he might cut off
locks of hair for his family. As he soon after stood by the stove,
warming himself, he exclaimed, "How happy am I that I maintained my
Christian faith while on the throne! What would have been my condition
now, were it not for this hope!" Soon faint gleams of the light of day
began to penetrate through the iron bars and planks which guarded his
windows. It was the signal for the beating of drums, the tramp of armed
men, the rolling of heavy carriages of artillery, and the clattering of
horses' hoofs. As the escort were arriving at their stations in the
court-yard of the Temple, a great noise was heard upon the stair-case.
"They have come for me," said the king; and, rising with perfect
calmness and without a tremor, he opened the door. It was a false
summons. Again and again, under various pretexts, the door was opened,
until nine o'clock, when a tumultuous noise upon the stair-case
announced the approach of a body of armed men. Twelve municipal officers
and twelve soldiers entered the apartment. The soldiers formed in two
lines. The king, with a serene air, placed himself between the double
lines, and, looking to one of the municipal officers, said, presenting
to him a roll of paper, which was his last will and testament, "I beg of
you to transmit this paper to the queen." The municipal brutally
replied, "That is no affair of mine. I am here to conduct you to the
scaffold." "True," the king replied, and gave the paper to another, who
received it. The king then, taking his hat and declining his coat,
notwithstanding the severity of the cold, said, with a dignified gesture
and a tone of command, "Let us go." The king led the way, followed
rather than conducted by his escort. Descending the stairs, he met the
turnkey, who had been disrespectful to him the night before, and whom
the king had reproached for his insolence. Louis immediately approached
the unfeeling jailer, and said to him, "Mathey, I was somewhat warm with
you yesterday; forgive me, for the sake of this hour." The imbruted
monster turned upon his heel without any reply.
As he crossed the court-yard of the Temple, he anxiously gazed upon the
windows of the apartment where the queen, his sister, and his children
were imprisoned. The windows were so guarded by plank shutters that no
glances from the loved ones within could meet his eye. As the heart of
the king dwelt upon the scenes of anguish which he knew must be passing
there, it seemed for a moment that his fortitude would fail him. But,
with a violent effort, he recovered his composure and passed on. At the
entrance of the Temple a carriage awaited the king. Two soldiers entered
the carriage, and took seats by his side. The king's confessor also rode
in the carriage. It was the 21st of January, 1793, a gloomy winter's
day. Dark clouds lowered in the sky. Fog and smoke darkened the city.
The atmosphere was raw, and cold in the extreme. Nature seemed in
harmony with man's deed of cruelty and crime. The shops were all
closed, the markets were empty. No citizens were allowed to cross the
streets on the line of march, or even to show themselves at the windows.
Sixty drums kept up a deafening clamor as the vast procession of
cavalry, infantry, and artillery marched before, behind, and on each
side of the carriage. Cannon, loaded with grape-shot, with matches
lighted, guarded the main street on the line of march, to prevent the
possibility of an attempt even at rescue. The noise of the drums, the
clatter of the iron hoofs of the horses, and the rumbling of the heavy
pieces of artillery over the pavements prevented all discourse, and the
king, leaning back in his carriage, surrendered himself to such
reflections as the awful hour would naturally suggest. The perfect
calmness of the king excited the admiration of those who were near his
person, and a few hearts in the multitude, touched with pity, gave
utterance to the cry of "Pardon! pardon!" The sounds, however, died away
in the throng, awakening no sympathetic response. As the procession
moved along, no sound proceeded from human lips. A feeling of awe
appeared to have taken possession of the whole city. The sentiment of
loyalty had, for so many centuries, pervaded the bosoms of the French
people, that they could not conduct their monarch to the scaffold
without the deepest emotions of awe. A feeling of consternation
oppressed every heart in view of the deed now to be perpetrated. But it
was too late to retract. Perhaps there was not an individual in that
vast throng who did not shudder in view of the crime of that day. At one
spot on the line of march, seven or eight young men, in the spirit of
desperate heroism which the occasion excited, hoping that the pity of
the multitude would cause them to rally for their aid, broke through the
line, sword in hand, and, rushing toward the carriage, shouted, "Help
for those who would save the king." Three thousand young men had
enrolled themselves in the conspiracy to respond to this call. But the
preparations to resist such an attempt were too formidable to allow of
any hopes of success. The few who heroically made the movement were
instantly cut down. At the Place de la Revolution, one hundred thousand
people were gathered in silence around the scaffold. The instrument of
death, with its blood-red beams and posts, stood prominent above the
multitudinous assemblage in the damp, murky air.
The guillotine was erected in the center of the Place de la Revolution,
directly in the front of the garden of the Tuileries. This celebrated
instrument of death was invented in Italy by a physician named
Guillotin, and from him received its name. A heavy ax, raised by
machinery between two upright posts, by the touching of a spring fell,
gliding down between two grooves, and severed the head from the body
with the rapidity of lightning. The palace in which Louis had passed the
hours of his infancy, and his childhood, and the days of his early
grandeur; the magnificent gardens of the palace, where he had so often
been greeted with acclamations; the spacious Elysian Fields, the pride
of Paris, were all spread around, as if in mockery of the sacrifice
which was there to be offered. This whole space was crowded with a
countless multitude, clustered upon the house tops, darkening the
windows, swinging upon the trees, to witness the tragic spectacle of the
beheading of their king. Arrangements had been made to have the places
immediately around the scaffold filled by the unrelenting foes of the
monarch, that no emotions of pity might retard the bloody catastrophe.
As the carriage approached the place of execution, the hum of the
mighty multitude was hushed, and a silence, as of death, pervaded the
immense throng.
At last the carriage stopped at the foot of the scaffold. The king
raised his eyes, and said to his confessor, in a low but calm tone, "We
have arrived, I think." By a silent gesture the confessor assented. The
king, ever more mindful of others than of himself, placed his hand upon
the knee of the confessor, and said to the officers and executioners who
were crowded around the coach, "Gentlemen, I recommend to your
protection this gentleman. See that he be not insulted after my death. I
charge you to watch over him." As no one made any reply, the king
repeated the admonition in tones still more earnest. "Yes! yes!"
interrupted one, jeeringly, "make your mind easy about that; we will
take care of him. Let us alone for that." Three of the executioners then
approached the king to undress him. He waved them from him with an
authoritative gesture, and himself took off his coat, his cravat, and
turned down his shirt collar. The executioners then came with cords to
bind him to a plank. "What do you intend to do?" he exclaimed,
indignantly. "We intend to bind you," they replied, as they seized his
hands. To be bound was an unexpected indignity, at which the blood of
the monarch recoiled. "No! no!" he exclaimed, "I will never submit to
that. Do your business, but you shall not bind me." The king resisted.
The executioners called for help. A scene of violence was about to
ensue. The king turned his eye to his confessor, as if for counsel.
"Sire," said the Abbe Edgeworth, "submit unresistingly to this fresh
outrage, as the last resemblance to the Savior who is about to
recompense your sufferings." Louis raised his eyes to heaven, and said,
"Assuredly there needed nothing less than the example of the Savior to
induce me to submit to such an indignity." He then reached his hands out
to the executioners, and said, "Do as you will; I will drink the cup to
the dregs." Leaning upon the arm of his friend, he ascended the steep
and slippery steps of the guillotine; then, walking across the platform
firmly, he looked for a moment intently upon the sharp blade of the ax,
and turning suddenly to the populace, exclaimed, in a voice clear and
distinct, which penetrated to the remotest extremities of the square,
"People, I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge. I pardon
the authors of my death, and pray God that the blood you are about to
shed may never fall again upon France. And you, unhappy people--" Here
the drums were ordered to beat, and the deafening clamor drowned his
words. The king turned slowly to the guillotine and surrendered himself
to the executioners. He was bound to the plank. "The plank sunk. The
blade glided. The head fell."
One of the executioners seized the severed head of the monarch by the
hair, and, raising the bloody trophy of their triumph, showed it to the
shuddering throng, while the blood dripped from it on the scaffold. A
few desperadoes dipped their sabers and the points of their pikes in the
blood, and, waving them in the air, shouted "Vive la Republique!" The
multitude, however, responded not to the cry. Explosions of artillery
announced to the distant parts of the city that the sacrifice was
consummated. The remains of the monarch were conveyed on a covered cart
to the cemetery of the Madeleine, and lime was thrown into the grave
that the body might be speedily and entirely consumed.
Over the grave where he was buried Napoleon subsequently began the
splendid Temple of Glory, in commemoration of the monarch and other
victims who fell in the Revolution. The completion of the edifice was
frustrated by the fall of Napoleon. The Bourbons, however, on their
restoration to the throne, finished the building, and it is now called
the Church of the Madeleine, and it constitutes one of the most
beautiful structures of Paris. The spot on which the monarch fell is now
marked by a colossal obelisk of blood-red granite, which the French
government, in 1833, transported from Thebes, in Upper Egypt. Louis was
unquestionably one of the most conscientious and upright sovereigns who
ever sat upon a throne. He loved his people, and earnestly desired to do
every thing in his power to promote their welfare. And it can hardly be
doubted that he was guided through life, and sustained through the awful
trial of his death, by the principle of sincere piety. The tidings of
his execution sent a thrill of horror through Europe, and fastened such
a stigma upon Republicanism as to pave the way for the re-erection of
the throne.