THE PARALLEL TO CHARLES I.
This worthy priest, of English origin, had escaped the September
massacres and was hiding out at Choisy, under the name of Essex, as the
Princess Elizabeth knew, and where to find him.
He came to the call, though he believed that he would be killed within
an hour of the dreadful scene.
He was not to quit the prisoner till he quitted the world.
The king was allowed to take farewell of his family in the dining-room,
where the glass door allowed the guards still to keep him in sight.
They knew the trial had taken place, but not the particulars, with
which he supplied them. He dwelt particularly on the fact that Petion
had not pressed for the death penalty, and that Gilbert had voted to
spare his life.
Heaven owed the poor prisoner some comfort, and it came in the love of
the queen.
As has been seen in our story, the queen easily let the picturesque
side of life attract her. She had that vivid imagination which makes
women imprudent even more than disposed; she had been imprudent all her
life in her friendship and in her loving.
Her captivity saved her in a moral point of view; she returned to the
pure and holy domestic virtues from which youthful passions had led
her; and as she could do nothing without extravagance, she fell to
loving passionately, in his distress, this royal consort whose vulgar
traits were all she could see in the days of felicity. In their first
disasters she saw a dullard, almost cowardly, without impulse or
resolution; at the temple she began to see that the wife had not only
misjudged the husband, but the queen the monarch. She beheld one calm
and patient, meek but firm under outrages; all the worldly dryness in
her was melted, and turned to the profit of better sentiments.
The same as she had scorned too deeply, she loved too fondly.
"Alas!" the king said to his confessor, "to think that I love so dearly
and am loved so much."
In their last interview, the queen seemed to yield to a feeling akin to
remorse. When she found that she could not be alone with her lord, she
drew him into a window recess, where she would have fallen on her knees
at his feet; but he understood that she wanted to ask his forgiveness,
so he stayed her and drew his will from his pocket to show her the
lines:
"I pray my wife to forgive all the woes I have led her to suffer
and the sorrows caused her in the course of our union, as she may
be sure that I cherish no ill feeling toward her, if she should
think that she had reason to blame herself in any way."
Marie kissed his hands, for while there was full pardon, there was
great delicacy, too, in the rest of the phrase.
So this royal Magdalen might die tranquil, late as came her love for
her husband, it won her divine and human mercy, and her pardon was
bestowed on earth, not in a mysterious whisper as an indulgence, of
which the king felt ashamed, but openly and publicly.
Who would reproach her who went toward posterity with the double crown
of the martyr and her husband's forgiveness?
The poignant farewell lasted nearly two hours before the condemned went
out to his priest.
As day began to break, the drums were beaten throughout the town; the
bustle and the sound penetrated the old tower and chilled the blood of
the priest and Clery.
At nine o'clock the noise increased and the doors were loudly flung
open. Santerre came in, followed by town officers and soldiers, who
formed a double row.
The king received the priest's blessing and a prayer for support, and
called for his hat, as all the others had kept their hats on. Seeing
that Clery had his overcoat ready for fear he would be cold, and the
shiver would be taken for that of fright, he said:
"No; nothing but my hat."
He took advantage of the act to shake his hand for the last time.
"Let us go, gentlemen," he said, with the tone of command so rarely
used by him.
In crossing the first yard, he turned two or three times to wave a
farewell to his dear ones.
With the priest he stepped into a hack, and the procession started,
leaving the queen no hope save for a rescue on the road. That of a
respite had already vanished.
She fell into a chair, sobbing: "To think of his going without saying
good-bye!"
The streets were foggy and deserted, as all citizens were forbidden to
be about unless belonging to the armed militia, and there were no faces
up at the windows.
All the prisoner saw was a forest of pikes and bayonets, with a large
drum corps before the party and cavalry around.
The clamor prevented the king talking with the confessor, who read his
prayer-book.
At St. Denis Gate the king lifted his head, for the uproar was marked
by a change in the shouts. A dozen young men, sword in hand, rushed
through the retinue and shouted:
"Rescue! This way, those who would save the king!"
One Baron de Batz, an adventurer, had engaged three thousand bravoes
to make this attempt, but only a handful responded when he sounded the
signal-cry. This forlorn hope of royalty, meeting no reply, retreated
and slipped away in the confusion.
The incident was of such slight importance that the carriage did not
stop; it was at its journey's end when it did.
One of the three brothers Sanson, the Paris executioners, came to open
the door.
Laying his hand on the abbe's knee, the king said, in the tone of a
master:
"Gentlemen, I recommend this gentleman to you. Take care of him after
my death, for he has done nobody harm."
He threw off his coat, not to be touched by the headsman. One had
a rope to bind his hands, but he said he would not submit to it. A
hand-to-hand fight would rob the victim of all the merit of six months'
calmness, courage, and resignation, so the confessor advised him to
yield, particularly as one of the Sansons, moved with pity, offered to
substitute a handkerchief.
He held out his hands resignedly, saying:
"Do as you like. I shall drain the chalice to the dregs."
The scaffold steps were high and slippery, and he had the priest's
arm for support, but on the top step he escaped, so to say, from the
spiritual guide, and went to the further end of the platform.
He was flushed in the face, and had never appeared more hale or
animated.
The drums began to beat, but he imposed silence by a look as, with a
lusty voice, he said:
"I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I forgive the authors
of my death, and I pray God that this blood shall not fall on France."
"Strike up, drums!" roared a voice long believed to be Santerre's, but
was that of Beaufranchet, Count Oyat, illegitimate son of Louis XV.,
and a courtesan, the prisoner's natural uncle.
The drums beat, and the king stamped his foot in vain.
"Do your duty!" yelled the pikemen to the executioners, who threw
themselves on the king.
He returned with slow steps under the knife, of which he had designed
the proper shape only a year ago.
He glanced at the priest who was praying at a corner of the scaffold.
Behind the two upright beams a scuffle went on. The tilting flap fell
into place, and the prisoner's head appeared in the ominous gap. A
flash, a dull, chopping sound was heard, and a large jet of blood
spouted forth.
Then, one of the death's-men taking up the head, sprinkled the
by-standers with the dripping fluid. At this sight the pikemen whooped
and rushed to dye their weapons in the blood, which they ran to show
the town, with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"
For the first time this cry found no echo, though it had oft thrilled
hearers with joy. The Republic had a stain on the brow which nothing
ever could efface. As a great diplomatist said, it had committed worse
than a crime--a blunder.
Thus died, on the 21st of January, 1793, King Louis XVI. He was aged
thirty-nine years. He had reigned eighteen, and was over five months a
prisoner. His last wish was not accomplished, for his blood not only
fell on France, but over the whole of Europe.