1The King, learning that he was to die at once, became a man almost heroic.

2With 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.

3“Pétion and Manuel,” he said,—“I am sure they did not vote my death?”

4No answer returned.

5“And my cousin, the Duc d’Orleans,—how voted he?”

6Malsherbes bowed his head.

7The King now exhibited the first signs of pain—of agony.

8“That vote affects me more than all the rest.”

9This was as the words of Cæsar, falling, “And you, too, Brutus?”

10Here a posse of authorities arrived, to announce his sentence to the King, with all the pomp and display of circumstance.

11The 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.

12The communication read, the King advanced, and, taking it, put the document very calmly into a little portfolio.

13“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.”

14The secretary hesitated to take the paper.

15“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.”

16These 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.

17The 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.

18The secretary took the two papers; whereupon the King bowed, as though dismissing his ministers at Court, thereby intimating his desire to be left alone.

19The minister retired.

20When 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.

21It 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.

22“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.”

23At 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.

24The 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.

25These courageous men, however, fought the good fight of pity through five hours.

26A majority of thirty-four refused all delay.

27One man, Kersaint, protested with a reckless nobleness of courage, which has placed him in the rank of great heroes.

28He gave in this written protest:—

29“Citizens,—

30“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.”

31The 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.

32The 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.

33He asked Malsherbes to seek the priest.

34“’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.”

35The 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.

36Abbot 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.

37With the fall of the King’s head, the utter Reign of Terror was to commence.

38Garat, while in his carriage, conveying the Abbot to the Temple, broke out into admiration of the King.

39“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.”

40The priest remained silent; he hesitated to betray himself.

41Not a word more was said up to the moment when the carriage stopped at the Temple.

42The 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.

43Here the Abbé was searched for weapons by a number of rough men, while the minister passed up into the King’s cell.

44When the Abbé followed him, the old man fell at the King’s feet, and burst into tears, with which the King mingled his own.

45“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.”

46Then, 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.

47“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.”

48With 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.

49His 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.

50A 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.

51Hour after hour passed away, and still the Abbé waited for the King to give an intimation that he wished to pray with the minister.

52At 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.

53He 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.

54The 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?

55One 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.

56At 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.

57The 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.

58The 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.

59Nevertheless, 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.

60“Bring some water, and a glass.”

61Cléry pointed to a caraffe standing on the table.

62“No,” said the King; “it is iced; and I fear, if the Queen drinks it, that it may disagree with her.”

63The 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.

64“No, no,” whispered the King; “I may only see you here.”

65Madame Elizabeth followed, leading the Princess Royal.

66Cléry 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.

67The 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.

68It 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.

69Yet 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.

70Of 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.

71Those who listened—miserable creatures—heard only a low, sweet murmur.

72At last the King rose.

73The moment had arrived.

74The 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.

75He, however, promised his family that they should see him at eight in the morning.

76“Why not at seven?” asked the Queen.

77“Very well—at seven,” he replied.

78“You promise?” cried the women and children.

79He then led them to the door—they uttering louder cries as he did so.

80“Adieu, adieu!” he cried, in a voice equally yearning after passing-away love, and an expression of hope in the future.

81The 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.

82The King availed himself of the heart-rending event to turn away. He closed the door, and the agony of royalty was ended.

83“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?”

84He paused for a few moments; then he added, “But I have done with to-day—let me prepare for eternity.”

85At 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.

86The priest now asked the King if he would like early in the morning to communicate.

87The 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.

88The 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.

89The 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.

90“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.”

91“I can set that doubt at rest,” said the Abbé. “You can yourselves supply me with both bread and wine.”

92The 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.

93Then 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.