She is thrown into prison
Trial of the princess
She refuses to swear
Assassination of the princess
Brutality of the mob
She was soon arrested as a Loyalist, and plunged, like the vilest criminal, into the prison of La Force. For the crime of loving the king and queen she was summoned to appear before the Revolutionary tribunal. The officers found her lying upon her pallet in the prison, surrounded by other wretched victims of lawless violence, scarcely able to raise her head from her pillow. She entreated them to leave her to die where she was. One of the officers leaned over her bed, and whispered to her that they were her friends, and that her life depended upon her entire compliance with their directions. She immediately arose and accompanied the guard down the prison stairs to the door. There two brutal-looking wretches, covered with blood, stood waiting to receive her. As they grasped her arms, she fainted. It was long before she recovered. As soon as she revived she was led before the judges. "Swear," said one of them, "that you love liberty and equality; and swear that you hate all kings and queens." "I am willing to swear the first," she replied, "but as to hatred of kings and queens, I can not swear it, for it is not in my heart." Another judge, moved with pity by her youth and innocence, bent over her and whispered, "Swear any thing, or you are lost." She still remained silent. "Well," said one, "you may go, but when you get into the street, shout Vive la nation!" The court-yard was filled with assassins, who cut down, with pikes and bludgeons, the condemned as they were led out from the court, and the mutilated and gory bodies of the slain were strewn over the pavement. Two soldiers took her by the arm to lead her out. As she passed from the door, the dreadful sight froze her heart with terror, and she exclaimed, forgetful of the peril, "O God! how horrible!" One of the soldiers, by a friendly impulse, immediately covered her mouth, with his hand, that her exclamations might not be heard. She was led into the street, filled with assassins thirsting for the blood of the Royalists, and had advanced but a few steps, when a journeyman barber, staggering with intoxication and infuriated with carnage, endeavored, in a kind of brutal jesting, to strike her cap from her head with his long pike. The blow fell upon her forehead, cutting a deep gash, and the blood gushed out over her face. The assassins around, deeming this the signal for their onset, fell upon her. A blow from a bludgeon laid her dead upon the pavement. One, seizing her by the hair, with a saber cut off her head. Others tore her garments from her graceful limbs, and, cutting her body into fragments, paraded the mutilated remains upon their pikes through the streets. The dissevered head they bore into an ale house, and drank and danced around the ghastly trophy in horrid carousal. The rioting multitude then, in the phrensy of intoxication, swarmed through the streets to the Temple, to torture the king and queen with the dreadful spectacle. The king, hearing the shoutings and tumultuous laughter of the mob, went to the window, and recognized, in the gory head thrust up to him upon the point of a pike, the features of his much-loved friend. He immediately led the queen to another part of the room, that she might be shielded from the dreadful spectacle.
Dreadful apprehensions
Increased severities
The queen grossly insulted
Such were the flashes of terror which were ever gleaming through the bars of their windows. The horrors of each passing moment were magnified by the apprehension of still more dreadful evils to come. There was, however, one consolation yet left them. They were permitted to cling together. Locked in each other's arms, they could bow in prayer, and by sympathy and love sustain their fainting hearts. It was soon, however, thought that these indulgences were too great for dethroned royalty to enjoy. But a few days of their captivity had passed away, when, at midnight, they were aroused by an unusual uproar, and a band of brutal soldiers came clattering into their room with lanterns, and, in the most harsh and insulting manner, commanded the immediate expulsion of all the servants and attendants of the royal family. Expostulation and entreaty were alike unavailing. The captives were stripped of all their friends, and passed the remainder of the night in sleeplessness and in despair. With the light of the morning they endeavored to nerve themselves to bear with patience this new trial. The king performed the part of a nurse in aiding to wash and dress the children. For the health of the children, they went into the court-yard of the prison before dinner for exercise and the fresh air. A soldier, stationed there to guard them, came up deliberately to the queen, and amused his companions by puffing tobacco smoke from his pipe into her face. The parents read upon the walls the names of their children, described as "whelps who ought to be strangled."
The king separated from his family
Wretched state of the king
Six weeks of this almost unendurable agony passed away, when, one night, as the unhappy captives were clustered together, finding in their mutual and increasing affection a solace for all their woes, six municipal officers entered the tower, and read a decree ordering the entire separation of the king from the rest of his family. No language can express the consternation of the sufferers in view of this cruel measure. Without mercy, the officers immediately executed the barbarous command, by tearing the king from the embraces of his agonized wife and his grief-distracted children. The king, overwhelmed with anguish in view of the sufferings which his wife and children must endure, most earnestly implored them not to separate him from his family. They were inflexible and, hardly allowing the royal family one moment for their parting adieus, hurried the king away. It was the dark hour of a gloomy night. The few rays of light from the lanterns guided them through narrow passages, and over piles of rubbish to a distant angle of the huge and dilapidated fortress, where they thrust the king into an unfurnished cell, and, locking the door upon him, they left him with one tallow candle to make visible the gloom and the solitude. There was, in one corner, a miserable pallet, and heaps of moldering bricks and mortar were scattered over the damp floor. The king threw himself, in utter despair, upon this wretched bed, and counted, till the morning dawned, the steps of the sentinel pacing to and fro before his door. At length a small piece of bread and a bottle of water were brought him for his breakfast.
The queen's anguish at the separation
The king sees his family occasionally
The anguish of the queen in the endurance of this most cruel separation was apparently as deep as human nature could experience. Her woe amounted to delirium. Pale and haggard, she walked to and fro, beseeching her jailers that they would restore to her and to her children the husband and the father. Her pathetic entreaties touched even their hearts of stone. "I do believe," said one of them, "that these infernal women will make even me weep." After some time, they consented that the king should occasionally be permitted to partake his meals with his family, a guard being always present to hear what they should say. Immediately after the meal, he was to be taken back to his solitary imprisonment.
Condition of the captives
Such was the condition of the royal family during a period of about four months, varied by the capricious mercy or cruelty of the different persons who were placed as guards over them. Their clothes became soiled, threadbare, and tattered; and they were deprived of all means of repairing their garments, lest they should convert needles and scissors into instruments of suicide. The king was not allowed the use of a razor to remove his beard; and the luxury of a barber to perform that essential part of his toilet was an expense which his foes could not incur. It was the studied endeavor of those who now rode upon the crested yet perilous billows of power, to degrade royalty to the lowest depths of debasement and contempt – that the beheading of the king and the queen might be regarded as merely the execution of a male and a female felon dragged from the loathsome dungeons of crime.
Chapter X.
Execution of the King
1792-1793
Ominous preparations
The king summoned before the Convention
The king before the Convention
Charges brought against him
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 king begs for a morsel of bread
He is taken back to prison
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 cortège 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.
Advance of the allies
Clamor for the king's life
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.
The king condemned to death
Emotion of Malesherbes
The king's demands
The Abbé Edgeworth
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 last interview
Anguish of the royal family
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 last embrace
The separation
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 king receives the sacrament
Mementoes to his family
The king summoned to execution
Brutality of the officers
The brutal jailer
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.
The king conducted to execution
A sad procession
Admirable calmness of the king
Attempt to rescue the king
Its failure
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
Associations
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.
The king's thoughtfulness
He undresses himself
The king ascends the scaffold
His speech
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 Abbé 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."
The last act in the tragedy
Burial of the king's body
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.
The blood-red obelisk
Character of Louis
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.