EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.
As the Place de la Revolution, the place of execution, came in view,
a ray of sunshine fell upon the guillotine—one of those coincidences
which the superstitious and the wonder-loving remember and treasure
up.
This open space was filled with a hundred thousand of the lowest
rabble; soldiers thick about the scaffold; and high above the people
stood a something, the woodwork of which was painted a blood-color.
This was the _guillotine_!
The guillotine had only just been introduced. It had been invented in
Italy, and imported into France by a humane doctor, named Guillotin,
whose name was cruelly taken and applied to the machine, an “e” being
added to make it feminine—for, according to the custom of most men in
most times, a something terrible and merciless is always feminine.
If the women had the naming, perhaps the other gender would as
frequently be applied to things of terror.
The guillotine was essentially a humane invention. Previous to its
introduction, the condemned man knelt down and placed his head on a
block. A headsman then with an axe endeavored to sever the head from
the body. The least swaying on his part, and instead of death, a
wound was the result. Often an executioner, unnerved by the failure
of his first blow, would hack and chop many times before the victim
ceased to show signs of life, and before the head was off the body.
The guillotine exactly fell in with the views of the equallist
Republicans, for they objected to the executioner, because it was
a disgrace to a man to be an executioner. On the other hand, the
guillotine, consisting of a heavy, razor-like knife, which worked in
grooves, and fell upon a neck irrevocably placed below the knife, the
head was separated at a blow, in a moment, and death achieved with
the least possible cruelty.
But if the guillotine was merciful—and of this there can be no
doubt—on the other hand—it may be questioned if so many people would
have been condemned to death during the Reign of Terror if the old
slow mode of decapitation had remained.
By a singular fatality the head of Guillotin himself was taken off by
the very instrument he had introduced from Italy into France.
All the vagabondage of Paris was present at this execution. The
trees bent under the masses of people who had climbed into them.
There was not breathing room, while, by connivance of the most
bloodthirsty of the revolutionary leaders, the spaces immediately
round the scaffold were occupied by the men who had effected the
massacre of September.
These men were there to applaud.
But when the carriage containing the King drew up before the
scaffold, the mob was silent—even the September men, for a little
time, held their peace.
The King perceiving the carriage stop, looked up, and said to the
Abbé, “We have arrived, I think.”
The minister replied by a gesture.
One of the three brothers Sanson, the three executioners of Paris,
opened the door.
The gendarmes got out, whereupon the King, closing the door, and
placing his hand upon the minister, he said authoritatively to those
who were pressing forward, “Gentlemen, I recommend this gentleman to
your care. Be brave enough to save him from insult after I am dead. I
charge you to save him!”
No one replied.
“I charge you to save him!”
One of them, more sinister than the rest, replied.
“Yes, yes,” he said; “be at peace—we will save him, and let us hear
no more about it.”
Louis now stepped from the carriage.
Three executioners’ attendants came forward, and wished to undress
him at the foot of the scaffold.
He waved them back, took off his coat, cravat, and turned down his
shirt.
The executioners again approached him.
“What do you seek to do?” he asked, angrily.
“Bind you!” they said, seizing his hands.
“Bind _me_!” the King cried, all the passion of centuries of petted
and idolized royal blood rising in the veins which were now in a few
moments to be empty. “Never!—I will not permit it. Do your work, but
you shall not bind me—do not even dream of such a thing!”
This man, the descendant of hundreds of kings, could not, even after
recommending his soul to God, uncrown himself. The Convention might
call him a citizen—but he had, as all kings must, lived in the
belief of that half-divinity which is still in some places supposed
to surround a king.
The executioners had their duty to do. Here was a man to be
guillotined. Men who were guillotined had to be bound. Then they must
bind their man.
They again approached.
A veritable struggle was about to commence at the foot of the
scaffold.
The King saved himself from himself in time. He remembered the
dignity of his death, and he looked towards the Abbé.
“Sire,” said the man of religion, “compare yourself to One far
greater than yourself, who was bound with cords, and who will soon
welcome you as a brother.”
The King looked to heaven, appeased, but the royal pride still
lingered.
“Truly, only the Divine example enables me to bear this disgrace.”
It is probable this final demonstration, in his very extremity, of
his superiority to touch from common hands, helped to harden the
nation against the life of the widow. On the other hand, it proved
the first occasion on which he showed the least sign of impatience
with his tormentors.
“Do as you will,” he said. “I will drink the cup to the dregs.”
Supported by the help of the aged minister, he ascended the steps
of the scaffold, and, it must be admitted, with signs of physical
fear—the first he had yet shown. Possibly this condition of body
was chiefly brought about by the actual physical resistance he had
made at the foot of the ladder. But upon coming to the level, all
his natural calmness or courage, whichever it was, came to his aid;
and, stepping quickly forward across the platform without help, he
contemplated the means of his death.
Suddenly, he turned, and faced the people, and used the royal gesture
of his life. It was quite natural—a habit of his life—and testified
to no violent defiance of his position, and of those who placed him
where he stood.
The drummers mechanically obeyed.
“People,” he said, in a voice which was heard afar off, even in the
very confines of the square,—“People, I die innocent of all the
crimes of which I am declared guilty. I forgive those who send me to
death, and I pray God that the blood you are about to shed may not
fall upon France.”
The crowd trembled—murmured.
He was about to speak again, when the officer of the troop gave
orders to the drums to beat and the King’s voice was drowned.
He had said enough. Nothing could add to the majesty of those few
words. The agony was spared him of learning who the man was that gave
the order which drowned his last words. It was the Count d’Oyat, a
natural son of Louis XV; and therefore by blood, if not by marriage,
the King’s uncle—Louis XVI being the grandson of Louis XV.
What a fate! His cousin voted for his death, and the last words he
uttered were drowned by the command of his uncle.
The condemned man turned slowly away. As they fastened him to the
plank, he cast one look upon the praying minister, and the next
moment the plank was sinking forward, carrying down Louis of France,
his face towards the earth.
Another moment—the time for the passage of the heavy blade—and Louis
of France was dead!