PART SIX

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVI

The long trial at the bar of the Parliament was over. The pleas had been heard, and old Malesherbes, weighty and with the dignity at once of ancient law, of contempt for fate, and of complete self-control, had done all that could be done for the king. The verdict had been given. Louis was found guilty by all of betraying the nation. He had called in the enemy. There remained to be decided by a further vote what his penalty should be.

It was the evening of Wednesday, January 16th, 1793. The deputies of the nation were to vote, each publicly and by name, an enormous roll-call of hundreds of men; each was to come up the steps to the tribune, to face the vast audience that stretched from left to right of the riding-school, and to pronounce clearly his decision. Each was free, if he chose, to add to his declaration the motives that had determined it.

The three great chandeliers that hung from the roof of the place were lit, affording a mellow, but insufficient, light in which the faces of the great throng, small dots of white on the black background, were but ill-distinguished. Upon the tribune itself a brighter light was turned.

The sun had long set; the evening meal was over; at eight o’clock the interminable procession began. They came on one by one, arranged in groups according to their constituencies. They went up in turn the steps of the tribune from the right, voted in open voice, descended by the left. Among the first was Robespierre, because he was of those that sat for the capital. He made a speech (too long) to explain what he was about to do. He protested that if the penalty of death was odious to him, and if he had combatted it consistently as a general principle of law, yet did he now support if for this exceptional case. “I remain compassionate for the oppressed. I know nothing of that humanity which is for ever sacrificing whole peoples and protecting tyrants.... I vote for death.”

One after another the deputies for Paris, the extreme men, the men of the Mountain, mounted those few steps, faced the great silent body of their colleagues, while those who had just voted before them were quietly seeking their places again, and those who were about to vote stood lined up before the steps upon the farther side, and one after the other gave his voice for death. Each after so declaring loudly his responsibility, his verdict, and his name, confirmed the whole by signing of a roll.

The voice of Danton was heard, the harsh, but deep and strong, voice that was already the first in the country. He had sat all that day by the bedside of his wife, who was to die. He had but just come back from the frontiers and from the army. His huge body was broken with fatigue; his soul was heavy with grief; his powerful brain was aching from a lack of sleep. “I am no politician,” he shouted; “I vote for death.”

So all night long the dreadful litany proceeded. Men left the hall to take an hour or two of sleep, a snatch of food; yet the hall seemed always full despite the coming and going of single figures, and through the long, cold darkness of that misty weather history heard voice after voice, weak, strong, ashamed, defiant, pitiful, muffled, outspoken, bass, treble, old, and young, repeating at irregular intervals: “Death absolute”; “Death with respite”; “Banishment”; “Imprisonment.” And history saw, after each such speech or cry (for many spoke as well before they declared the doom), an isolated man, high upon the tribune, beneath the candles, bending over the register and signing to what he had determined and proclaimed.

The dull dawn of winter broke through a leaden sky. No eastern window received it. The tall, gaunt casements of the southern wall overlooking the Tuileries Gardens grew gradually into lighter oblongs of gray. The candles paled and were extinguished. Hardly a third of the list was done. All that short January day (Thursday, the seventeenth of January) the dreadful thing proceeded until darkness fell again, until once more the chandeliers were lit. Once more it was night, and they were still voting, still declaring.

At last, when more than twenty-four hours had passed, the business was over. No one was left to come forward to the tribune; and this great sleepless mass, within which some few had noted one by one the voices as they fell, and had already calculated the issue, waited for the counting of the votes and for the recounting. Not only by word of

[Illustration: REPUBLICAN SOLDIERS IN THE REVOLUTION

_To face p. 202_ ]

mouth, nor only by the signing of the register, had the precision of so awful an event been secured, but one by one the votes had been written down, folded, and sealed. The clerks of the Parliament opened each packet and arranged the sentences in rows, according to their tenor: for death absolute, for imprisonment, for delay. So one hour went past, and then another; but in the third, when it was perhaps ten o’clock, at night this silent process was interrupted, and the many that had fallen asleep, or were nodding half asleep after such a vigil, looked up surprised to hear that two letters had reached the assembly, one from some agent of the Bourbon king in Spain to demand a respite; the other from the advocates of the king, who demanded to be heard once more before the chair should announce the result of the voting.

All was interrupted; an immediate and passionate, though short, debate began. The intervention of the King of Spain the Convention would not consider; upon the proposal that the king’s advocates should be heard once more a debate was allowed. Many members joined it, though in brief periods. Robespierre among others, spoke intensely. He demanded that sentence should be read out and given before there could be any consideration of appeal. That opinion (not through him) prevailed, and the opening and arranging of the votes continued. A ceaseless little crackling of tearing papers, the whispered comments of men in groups, now and then some cry from the public in the galleries, broke the silence.

It was not far from midnight when a further movement among the clerks at the table, a comparison of sums, and heads bent together, scrutinizing the additions, prefaced the last scene of this act. The paper, with the figures written on it, was handed up to the chairman. That chairman was Vergniaud; perhaps the noblest, certainly the most eloquent, of the Girondins. He rose in his place above them, holding that paper before him, and read out in the grave and even voice which had often moved their debates:

“It is with profound sadness that I declare the penalty incurred by Louis Capet to be, by the vote of the majority of this assembly, that of death.”

Of seven hundred and twenty-one men who had voted, three hundred and ninety-seven had demanded the scaffold, a majority of seventy-three.

[Illustration: PROCLAMATION OF THE PROVISIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

_To face p. 204_ ]

It was in complete silence that this memorable sentence fell. That silence was continued for some moments unbroken. The advocates of the king were now permitted to enter, for sentence had been formally delivered, and old Malesherbes, short, strong in figure for all his years, and now so far oblivious of his dignity and name as to be weeping, put forward his last plea. Sentence of death could not be given, by all the traditions of their law, unless two-thirds of the bench (for the French will have no single judges) concurred. And again, the prisoner had not had all those guarantees which a prisoner should have. And again, since it was as the head of the whole nation that he had acted, and since it was by the whole nation that he was conceived to be judged, then let the whole nation speak. He demanded an appeal to the French people.

For a third time Robespierre spoke. He spoke with more emotion than his peculiar academic style commonly permitted. Though he was in no way representative as yet of public feeling, though he was still a lesser man among those hundreds, for the third time his opinion coincided with that which was to prevail. He implored the assembly not to reopen the whole issue of civil war by putting this grave matter upon which they had fixedly decided to a general vote of millions. Not for the first time did this unalterable man betray for a moment his own unalterable creed. Later he was himself to perish in punishment divine of such deviations from the conscience of equality and of citizenship.

Guadet--Guadet, the Girondin--spoke for the king in the legal matter. Merlin, a jurisconsult of some weight, replied. It was not true, he said, that by the traditions of the common law a majority of two-thirds was required to confirm so grave a sentence in any tribunal. Upon points of _fact_, he urged, a majority not of two-thirds, but more,--of ten out of twelve judges or assessors should determine,--but for the _penalty_ a bare majority--three votes out of five given from the bench--had always been held sufficient. The appeal of Louis was rejected, and the Convention rose after a continued session of thirty-six hours.

There remained the question of respite. It was debated upon the next day, Friday, the 18th of January. It was with a singular difficulty that this second debate proceeded. Men left their places time and again during the course of the day; there was such confusion that no vote could be taken; and all the Saturday the thing hung in the balance right on into the small hours--the dark and cold small hours of the January night. It was three o’clock upon the Sunday morning before the final vote appeared. Six hundred and ninety men decided it, and a majority of seventy was found for immediate death.

That Sunday, Louis, in the prison of the Temple, in the great square tower where he and his wife and his children and his sister had now for many months been held captive, suffered his passion.

It is singular, instructive, a lesson in history, to note what the man’s temper was during this prodigious time. The curious may examine (displayed under glass in the archives for all to see) the note which he wrote out with his own hand in his prison. It proves in its handwriting and in its composition, in its very erasures, a momentous calm. If courage in the presence of death be a chief index to character, admire so complete a courage present in a man whose lack of judgment, torpor, grave lethargies, whose imbecilities even, had helped to bring him where he was. Louis, but for his death, might pass to history among the negligible figures of her roll; but see how he died!

The note, written finely in even lines, asks for a delay of three days “to permit me to appear before the presence of God.” It asks further for the right to have his own confessor and for the guaranteeing of that confessor (the Abbé Edgeworth, of course) from all anxiety. He asks to see his family, and he recommends to the goodwill of the nation all those who were attached to his person.

Here and there he changes a word, scratching out the original expression deliberately, rewriting the substituted expression in a hand as firm as the rest. It is curious to note that he twice expunges the term “the National Convention.” He was making his address to the Convention, and yet he would not use its title.

The night came early upon that Sunday, for the unbroken, drizzling sky still stretched above Paris, and there was no sunset. Moreover, the insufficient windows of the mediæval tower, sunk in their thick walls, were partly boarded to prevent communication with friends outside. After some

[Illustration:

Copyright, by Manzi-Joyant Co.

THE LAST VICTIMS OF THE TERROR

_To face p. 209_ ]

hours had passed,--rather more than two hours in the light of the candles (it was now eight in the evening),--the time for the supreme ordeal was come; his family were to be admitted.

For some weeks now he had been separated from them. They had been imprisoned in the rooms above. His demand for three days had been rejected. He was to die upon the morrow, but he was to be permitted to see his own before he died, and to discuss with his confessor what he nobly called “the great business” of our passage from this life.

There gave upon the stair facing the narrow stone staircase of the Temple a great oaken door, studded with many huge old nails. It opened, and the queen came in. God! what must we not imagine her to have seemed in that moment, this woman who had so despised him, and yet had been faithful to him, and had principally ruined him; and who had, in these last months, so marvellously changed and grown in soul. The queen came in falteringly. She held by the hand her rickety little son; her somewhat dull little daughter (the elder of the two children) followed. The king’s sister, the Princess Elizabeth, of a different and more simple bearing, and of a soul longer tried and longer purified, came in more erect, the last of the four.

The king sat down and put his wife upon his left, his sister upon his right. He took the boy, the last heir of the Capetian monarchy, and stood him between his knees, and told him in a clear manner and in a low and even tone the duties of a Christian in the difficult matter of revenge, that it must be foregone. He lifted up the boy’s little right hand to give to this direction the sanctity of an oath.

It seems that few words were spoken during that terrible time. The queen clung to him somewhat. He mastered himself well. Altogether these three and the two children were assembled for nearly two hours. A little before ten he himself determined that the agony must end.

Marie Antoinette, as was her custom under stress, broke out into passionate protestation. Then she checked herself and admitted doom. But she implored him that they should see him again, and he said to her, perhaps unwisely, that he would see her before he left for his passing. He would see her in the morning at the hour when he was summoned to go. She would have it earlier still.

[Illustration: KING LOUIS TAKING LEAVE OF HIS FAMILY IN THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE

_To face p. 211_ ]

He said it should be earlier by half an hour. She made him promise solemnly enough, and he promised her. Ten o’clock had struck, and the chimes were sounding over Paris and from the great clock of the Temple before she unloosed her hands.

He stood. The women passed out with weak knees (it is said that the girl was half fainting). The oaken door shut behind them, and the iron door outside it clanged to. He heard their soft steps, slow and creaking, mounting the winding stone stairs without. Then they were lost, and he was in silence. He prayed a moment and then lay down to sleep. He slept deeply till five in the morning. The men bringing in the vessels for a Mass awoke him. He rose and prayed.

In the full darkness, before it was yet six o’clock, the queen heard a step approaching up the stairs. It could not be the king. She watched from above her candle. It was a messenger come for books of devotion which the king required at his mass and communion. Then she heard the chimes of seven, and the day was breaking; upon her window the falling mist had made a blur, and it was very cold. She waited on until eight o’clock. There was no sound. Her agony was unrelieved. Yet another hour, and she heard steps and the coming and going of many men upon the stone stairs below. No one came up. The sounds sank away. The great door that gave into the courtyard was heard creaking upon its hinges, there was the pawing of horses upon the stones, and the cries of command to the escort, a certain confused noise from the crowd outside the walls. The tower was empty. She had not seen the king.

The king had passed through the prison door. He had gone on foot, with the priest by his side, across the little court to the high wall which surrounded the tower. The guards followed him.

Just before he came to the barrier he turned back to look at the prison. He made a slight gesture as of constraint, and firmly turned again toward the gate.

Outside this the guards were drawn up, and a roomy carriage of the sort that was then hired in the streets by the wealthy stood at the entrance. Two policemen armed with muskets were awaiting him at the carriage door. As Louis appeared, one of these men got in and took his seat with his back to the horses. Then the king entered, sitting in his proper place upon the right, facing him, and motioned to the priest, Edgeworth, to sit beside him. When they were both thus seated, the second policeman took his place opposite, and he and his colleague set their guns before them. The door was shut, the cab started at a foot’s pace.

As they came out on the broad streets (for they followed the boulevards), they could see upon each side of the way, three or four ranks deep, the soldiery and militia which guarded those trod miles through the town. There was no crowd on the pavement behind the ranks of soldiers, or at least but few spectators, and a curious observer might have noted how few and rare were the uniforms, how many of the thousands aligned were clothed in workman’s dress or in the mere remnants of military coats. Even the windows of the uneven houses they passed (the boulevards were then but half built) gaped empty, and no one stood at the doors.

Before the carriage marched a great multitude of men, all enregimented in some sort of troop, and the greater part of them drummers. These last drummed incessantly, so that this long and very slow procession was confused and deafened with a loud and ceaseless sound. Paris heard that sound rolling up afar from the eastward, crashing past its houses, lost again toward the west.

It was close upon eleven o’clock when the carriage came before the unfinished columns of the Madeleine and turned into the Rue Royale.

Louis was reading from a book the Psalms which his confessor had pointed out to him when he noticed that the carriage had stopped. He looked up, turned to the priest, and said in a low voice:

“Unless I am mistaken, we are there?” The priest did not answer.

They had come to that wide open space which is now called the Place de la Concorde, and as he looked quietly through the windows, the doomed man perceived a great throng of people densely packed about a sort of square of cannon which surrounded the scaffold and guillotine. That fatal woodwork and the machine it bore stood near the entrance of the Rue Royale and a little to the east. One of the executioners (who stood at the foot of the scaffold) took the handle of the carriage door to open it. Louis stopped him and, putting one hand on the priest’s knee before he got out, said:

“Sirs, I recommend you this gentleman here.

[Illustration:

Copyright, by Manzi-Joyant Co.

A MASS UNDER THE TERROR

_To face p. 214_ ]

See to it that after my death no insult shall be offered him.”

They said nothing in reply, but when the king would have continued, one of them cried:

“Oh, yes, yes. We will see to it. Leave it to us.”

The king opened the door, and came out into the freshness of that damp air. Above, the sky was still quite gray and low, but the misty drizzle had ceased. They made as though to take off his coat and his collar. He moved them aside, and himself disembarrassed his neck. Then one came forward with a cord and took his hands.

“What are you at?” he cried.

“We must bind you,” said the man.

“Bind me!” answered the king. “I will never allow it! Fulfil your orders, but you _shall_ not bind me!”

There was a struggle in which he turned to the priest as though for counsel or for aid, but they bound his hands behind him.

The few steps up to the scaffold were very steep. The Abbé Edgeworth supported him so bound, and thought for a moment, as he felt the weight upon his arm, that the prisoner was losing courage. But even as he turned to glance furtively at the king, in that crisis Louis had strengthened himself, and stood upright upon the broad stage. With a few rapid and determined steps he took his way toward the guillotine, standing to the right of the instrument. Some yards in front of him and below, a score of drummers were at the ready with sticks lifted, balanced as drummers balance them between the knuckles of the hand. He cried out, standing erect with his stout figure and heavy, impassive face, “I die innocent of all the----” at which moment there came a sudden cry of command, and the drums beat furiously. To that sound he died; and those who were present relate that immediately afterward there arose from the great mob about, which had hitherto held its breath, a sort of loud moaning, not in anger or in hatred, but in astonishment of the spectacle and of things to come.

THE END.

PRINTED BY THE WESTMINSTER PRESS LONDON, W.

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF KING LOUIS XVI, JANUARY 21, 1793

_To face p. 216_ ]

Typographical error corrected by the etext transcriber:

fated to embarass his whole=> fated to embarrass his whole {pg 122}