NEAR THE BLOCK.
The King, learning that he was to die at once, became a man almost
heroic.
With calm curiosity, and as though making inquiries concerning the
affairs of another man, and not of his own, he learnt the particulars
of the voting; and he made special inquiries concerning the votes of
various members of the Convention.
“Pétion and Manuel,” he said,—“I am sure they did not vote my death?”
No answer returned.
“And my cousin, the Duc d’Orleans,—how voted he?”
Malsherbes bowed his head.
The King now exhibited the first signs of pain—of agony.
“That vote affects me more than all the rest.”
This was as the words of Cæsar, falling, “And _you_, too, Brutus?”
Here a posse of authorities arrived, to announce his sentence to the
King, with all the pomp and display of circumstance.
The King stood up, his head erect, his eyes upon his judges, and
he listened to his fate—_death within twenty-four hours_—with the
intrepidity of a brave man. One look towards heaven, as he heard the
words which curtailed his life, and then he was once more facing his
enemies.
The communication read, the King advanced, and, taking it, put the
document very calmly into a little portfolio.
“Sir,” he said to the officiating minister of the Convention and
speaking half royally, half supplicatingly, “I request you to deliver
this letter to the Convention.”
The secretary hesitated to take the paper.
“I will read it to you,” said the King; and he commenced. “I demand
from the Convention three days, in which to prepare my soul for God,
I require freely to see the priest, whom I am about to name, and
that he be protected while extending to me the charity of his holy
office. I demand to be freed from the shameful watchfulness which has
surrounded me now for many days past. I ask, during these my last
moments, leave to see my family when I will, and without witnesses.
And I pray most earnestly that the Convention will at once take into
consideration the fate of my family; and that they may, after my
death, at once be allowed to go whither they will. I recommend to
the love of the nation all persons who in any way have claims on me.
These are, many of them, old men, and women, and children. Many of
them must be in want.”
These words show that even at this point the King had not the least
thought of the popular vengeance going beyond himself, and falling
on the Queen. He cannot comprehend that they will kill women and
children—his faith in loyalty and manhood is too strong to admit of
any such suspicion in his breast. The faults of Louis, those rather
of apathy than action, were many; but he was a brave and loyal
gentleman, who certainly could not comprehend cowardice.
The name of the minister for whose holy office the King asked,
and which was written upon the separate piece of paper, was Abbé
Edgeworth de Fermont—a gentleman descended from a good Irish family.
The secretary took the two papers; whereupon the King bowed, as
though dismissing his ministers at Court, thereby intimating his
desire to be left alone.
The minister retired.
When they were gone, the King walked up and down his prison with a
firm, steady step. Suddenly he looked up—his fatal appetite, that
scourge of the Bourbons, was upon him—and asked for his dinner.
It was served without a knife—a spoon replacing that utensil. He
was far more indignant at these precautions than at hearing his
death-warrant read.
“Do they think me such a coward,” he cried, “as to deprive my
enemies of my life? Do they think if a knife is given me to feed
with, I shall save the guillotine the trouble of destroying me? Poor
creatures! I am accused of public crimes—I have committed no crimes;
and, therefore, why should I so much fear death as to anticipate its
terrors. I die innocent, and therefore, fearlessly. I would that my
blood might atone for France, and that thereby the troubles I foresee
coming be averted.”
At six o’clock, Garat, the reader of the sentence, and Santerre, had
an interview with the King, to bring the answer of the Convention to
his commands.
The Convention had decided that no farther time should be given
to the King. A few members had shown some sentiment of mercy. The
reply was the exhibition of half a dozen sabres on the part of the
fiercer deputies, who declared that if these men who pleaded for the
concession of the King’s request were not silent living, they should
be mute dead.
These courageous men, however, fought the good fight of pity through
five hours.
A majority of thirty-four refused all delay.
One man, Kersaint, protested with a reckless nobleness of courage,
which has placed him in the rank of great heroes.
He gave in this written protest:—
“CITIZENS,—
“It is impossible for me any longer to support the disgrace of
sitting in the Convention with bloodthirsty men, when their
opinion, aided by terror, prevails over that of good men. If the
love of my country has forced me to endure the misfortune of being
one in a body of men amongst whom there is a section who applaud
the murders of September, I will at least defend my memory from
the charge of having been their accomplice. I have but the present
moment in which to do this act; to-morrow it will be too late.”
The Convention was angered, not confounded, by this language. The
Minister of Justice was charged to inform the Citizen Louis that
he could see the priest whom he had named, and that he could see
his family without any interference by his gaolers,—but that on the
morrow he must die.
The King accepted the decision without a murmur; for he did not so
much battle for those days’ longer life, as ask for a few hours’
pause between life and eternity.
He asked Malsherbes to seek the priest.
“’Tis a strange request to make to one of the school of
philosophers,” he said, with a smile; “but I have always preserved
my faith as a curb on my power as a King. As a consolation in mine
adversity, I have proved it in the depths of my prison; and if ever
you should be sentenced to a death similar to mine, I trust you may
find the same solace in your last moments.”
The Abbé Edgeworth and the ex-King were old and fast friends. The
priest did not hesitate a moment, and at once hastened to the prison,
albeit he knew that the probability was that he would never be free
again.
Abbot Edgeworth was taken from his obscure lodging, in the first
place, to the Convention, where many of the members made a
demonstration in admiration of his courage; for, by this time, to be
a priest was to be in danger of death.
With the fall of the King’s head, the utter Reign of Terror was to
commence.
Garat, while in his carriage, conveying the Abbot to the Temple,
broke out into admiration of the King.
“Great heavens!” he cried, “with what a terrible mission am I not
charged! What a man is this Louis XVI—what resignation he shows, and
what courage! No mere human strength could give such force; in this
there is something of the supernatural.”
The priest remained silent; he hesitated to betray himself.
Not a word more was said up to the moment when the carriage stopped
at the Temple.
The Abbé remarked that the first room through which they passed was
filled with armed men. Thence they passed to a larger apartment,
which the Abbé saw had been a chapel; but the signs of religion had
been swept away—the altar was broken in pieces.
Here the Abbé was searched for weapons by a number of rough men,
while the minister passed up into the King’s cell.
When the Abbé followed him, the old man fell at the King’s feet, and
burst into tears, with which the King mingled his own.
“Pardon me,” said Louis, raising him, “this is indeed weakness! I
have so long lived amongst my enemies, that I have grown to think
little of their hatred, and my heart has grown hard and callous. But
the sight of an old friend restores to me that tenderness which I
thought was long since dead, and I weep in spite of my will to be
unmoved.”
Then, taking the priest by the hand, he drew him into the little
turret which served him for a studio. In this room, all that was to
be found consisted of a couple of chairs, a small earthenware stove,
a few books, and an ivory crucifix.
“I have,” said he to the Abbé, “arrived at that moment in my life
when I must earnestly seek to make my peace with heaven, so that
I may humbly hope to pass from a weary life to one of peace and
quietude.”
With these words, he produced his will, and read it over twice to the
Abbé, electing him as his judge in this final act of life. He feared
that, in the very act of pardoning his enemies, he might accuse them,
and he was specially desirous that any appearance of this nature
should be avoided.
His voice only faltered when he spoke of the Queen, his sister, and
his children. He lived now only in the love he had for his family;
apart from them, he had resigned all thoughts of life.
A calm conversation ensued. The King inquired after many old friends;
speaking, not with the air of a man who is vanishing into death, but
with the appearance of a man who, after absence, asks eagerly for
those he loved and left behind.
Hour after hour passed away, and still the Abbé waited for the King
to give an intimation that he wished to pray with the minister.
At seven, he was to have his last interview with his family; and as
this moment approached, he appeared to dread it far more than the
thought of the scaffold.
He was unwilling that so great an agony as this parting must
necessarily be, should trouble the calmness of his death, which,
obviously, he looked upon in the light of a sacrifice.
The Queen and princesses had the news by this time, for the street
criers bawled the fact of the next day’s execution of the King under
the very windows of the Temple tower. All hope was dead; and the only
sentiment which swayed them was this: would the King be prevented
from taking a last good-bye—would he be prevented from kissing them,
and blessing them, before he went forth to die?
One last word—one last kiss!—this was now the boundary of the
wishes of the once brilliant Marie Antoinette, one of the proudest
princesses, and, as a wife, one of the greatest martyrs, the world
has yet seen.
At last the members of his family were told that they were to see the
King prior to his execution. And this was their joy in the midst of a
desolation from which their only relief was death itself.
The poor creatures prepared for this interview hours before it could
take place. They asked incessantly of their gaoler if it was time for
the King’s arrival, and bore patiently with the rough, rude answer
only too frequently bestowed upon them.
The King himself, though apparently more calm, was equally agitated.
He had never experienced but one affection—that for his wife; but
one friendship—his sister’s; but one joy—his children. The cares
of the throne may have hidden much of these qualities, but never
extinguished them; and, in his adversity, they had flowed back in the
shape of a wealth of consolation.
Nevertheless, the King’s calmness, almost callousness, appears
amazing in its contemplation. Re-entering the ordinary room, or cell,
in which he passed his imprisoned days, he began to set in order to
receive the Queen.
“Bring some water, and a glass.”
Cléry pointed to a caraffe standing on the table.
“No,” said the King; “it is iced; and I fear, if the Queen drinks it,
that it may disagree with her.”
The door, at last, was thrown open, and the Queen, leading her son,
threw herself into his arms, and was about to lead him to her chamber.
“No, no,” whispered the King; “I may only see you here.”
Madame Elizabeth followed, leading the Princess Royal.
Cléry closed the door upon the family; and, for the first and
last time since their return to Paris from Varennes, they were
_unwatched_. The King was almost dead, and dead men can do no harm,
even to revolutionary authorities.
The King gently forced his wife to sit on his right, while his sister
he placed on his left; and, as he sat down between them, they put
each an arm about his neck, and laid their heads above the heart
which, in a few hours, was to cease heating. The Dauphin was on his
father’s knee, while the little daughter’s head lay in her father’s
lap.
It is said that for more than half an hour not a word was spoken;
but the sudden bursts of grief, and especially the Queen’s frantic,
terrific screams, were heard not only throughout the prison, but
positively in many of the streets adjacent to the gaol.
Yet nature is very good, and enables us to bear our trials by the
force of physical weakness. But soon, indeed, the miserable family,
their eyes exhausted of tears, were able to talk in low whispers,
to console each other, and to give each other many agonized last
embraces. This dread agony lasted through an hour and a half. The
ex-royal family had been together two hours.
Of those five unhappy people, only the little Princess, aged seven or
eight, lived to tell in after years, what happened at that interview.
They confided to each other what they had thought about during their
separation; repeated promises over and over again to forget and
forgive all their enemies, should either of them ever come to power;
and, finally, sublime prayers, offered by the King, to the effect
that he trusted his death might cause the nation the loss of not one
drop of blood. The directions he gave his son (so soon to follow him
into the grave) were not royal, but, better, they were Christian.
Those who listened—miserable creatures—heard only a low, sweet murmur.
At last the King rose.
The moment had arrived.
The Queen threw herself at the King’s feet, and entreated him to
allow her and her children to remain with him all night. This
request, in mercy, he would not grant; but warded off the request
by gently intimating that he must have some hours’ tranquillity, in
which to gain strength to die fittingly.
He, however, promised his family that they should see him at eight in
the morning.
“Why not at seven?” asked the Queen.
“Very well—at seven,” he replied.
“You promise?” cried the women and children.
He then led them to the door—they uttering louder cries as he did so.
“Adieu, adieu!” he cried, in a voice equally yearning after
passing-away love, and an expression of hope in the future.
The poor little Princess here fell inanimate at her father’s feet.
The attention the Queen now gave the child ameliorated the agony of
that parting.
The King availed himself of the heart-rending event to turn away. He
closed the door, and the agony of royalty was ended.
“Ah!” he cried, entering the turret, where the Abbé Edgeworth was
awaiting him, “what a scene! Alas! why do I love so deeply—why am I
so deeply loved?”
He paused for a few moments; then he added, “But I have done with
to-day—let me prepare for eternity.”
At this point Cléry appeared, and asked the King to take some
refreshment. Louis refused at first; but even at that ghastly pass
his appetite asserted itself, and he ate and drank during five
minutes—only bread and wine; and this he did standing, after the
manner of a traveller hurrying on a journey.
The priest now asked the King if he would like early in the morning
to communicate.
The King turned, and a last look of pleasure shone upon his face.
He was essentially a religious man, but he had despaired of being
permitted to take the communion, for the Convention, amongst other
things, had abolished the theory and practice of the Lord’s Supper.
The Abbé therefore sought the commissaries on duty, and asked for the
necessary articles, without which, according to the Roman Church, the
ceremony of the communion cannot be effected.
The gaol authorities were excessively confused. On the one hand,
they were ashamed to refuse this consolation to a dying man; on the
other, the constitution of the country then held that this belief in
transubstantiation, or the passage of the bread and wine into the
actual body and blood of Christ at their raising, was a superstition.
“And if we give you permission,” cried one of the leading men, “how
do we know you will not cheat the scaffold of his blood by poisoning
him with the holy wafer? It is well known to us that certain kings
have been poisoned in the holy wafer, given to them as the very blood
of the Redeemer.”
“I can set that doubt at rest,” said the Abbé. “You can yourselves
supply me with both bread and wine.”
The hope of “communicating” elevated the dying King almost to
ecstasy. He fell upon his knees, and until far into the night recited
the simple, almost innocent, sins of which he had been guilty. A
very innocent and simple-hearted man, the list could not have been
formidable.
Then he lay down, and fell asleep, as calmly as a little child—as
though that final night was to be succeeded by a long and peaceful
morrow.