1The Abbé, meanwhile, prayed unceasingly in an outer chamber, and separated only from the King’s by a wooden partition.

2He and Cléry, the recently-appointed but faithful attendant on the King, heard the condemned man’s breath regular and peaceful, uninterrupted by cries or restlessness. His heart beat regularly, with no more fear than is experienced by clockwork which has nearly run down, and is about to stop.

3At five, it was necessary to awaken the King.

4“Has it struck five?” he inquired, of Cléry.

5“Not yet, by the town clock,” the man replied “but several bells have sounded the hour.”

6“I have slept heartily,” remarked the King; “I suppose because, yesterday, I was very much fatigued.”

7Cléry now lighted the fire, and helped his dying master to dress.

8The King “communicated,” the altar being raised in the room in which he usually sat.

9He took the substantiated, or, rather, consecrated, bread, with awful gravity, but with utter calmness.

10While the priest was disrobing, the King retired to the little turret; and here, being joined by Cléry, the good servant knelt, and requested the King’s blessing.

11Louis XVI raised his hand, and desired him to convey that blessing, through himself, to all who loved their King, and especially to those of his gaolers who had shown to the royal family anything like pity or kindness.

12Then, leading the valet to the window, he gave him, so that those watching through the glass of the doors should not see the act, a seal, which he had detached from his watch, a small parcel, taken from his bosom, and the wedding-ring with which, at their royal marriage, the Queen had pledged her faith to him. This ring he took from the hand upon which he had worn it since placed there at his marriage.

13“When I am dead,” he said, “you will give this seal to my son, and this ring to the Queen. Tell her that I give it up with great pain, and only because I do not will that it should share in the profanity to which, of course, my body will be subjected. And this little parcel has in it locks of the hair of all my family. Give it, also, to my lady. Say to the Queen, and to my most dear children, and to my sister, that though I promised to see them this morning, I meant to spare them the grief of another bitter separation. It costs me more than I can describe, to go without kissing them again!”

14Here he wept, for the last time in his life, it being one of the very few occasions when he was moved to tears.

15“I give to you,” he added, in a sweet, low, suppressed voice,—“I give to you my last farewell, to take to those I love!”

16Cléry retired, weeping, though his tears were an evidence against him which might cost him his life.

17A moment passed, and the King, leaving the little room, asked one of the gaolers for a pair of scissors.

18“What for, citizen?”

19“I wish the Citizen Cléry to cut off my hair; it is the only legacy I have to leave my family.”

20“’Tis well,” said the gaoler.

21And Cléry performed this ghastly office.

22Cléry, turning to the commissaires, said, “And now, citizens, I beg that I may be allowed to accompany the Citizen Louis Capet”—he dared not call him King; to do so would have terminated his own life—“to the scaffold. I seek permission to perform this last office, and that it may not be left to the executioner.”

23“Bah! The executioner is good enough for him!” cried one of the more influential commissaires.

24The King turned away.

25The Abbé, following him some moments afterwards, found the King calmly warming himself near the stove, and evidently contemplating his approaching end with a certain calm joy which was to be envied by very many of those who had condemned him.

26“Good heavens!” he cried, “how glad I am that while on the throne, I maintained my faith in the Eternal! What now would be my sufferings, if I had not steadfast hope in the world to come! Oh, yes; above there is a Judge of courage, who cannot be influenced or threatened—who will judge me honestly, and accord to me that justice which has been denied me in this world.”

27The winter day now broke, and light struggled between the bars and planks which combined to shut out light from the royal prisoners, one of whom was now destined soon to be free.

28The roll of the drum, on one side or the other far and near, now was heard; hurried steps passed; the click of arms could be distinguished; and soon horses, heavily mounted, were heard beating along the street.

29A heavier sound—cannon, and strongly-built tumbrils or wagons were heard, taking up their position in the court-yard of the prison, and about its entrance.

30The King, true to the last to his marvellous character—which his friends describe, as one not to be swayed by passion, which his enemies analyzed to be one of callousness and incapability of feeling, not only with regard to others, but even for himself—the King commented on these sounds, not as though they affected him and his life, but as though they were an agreeable puzzle he was putting together.

31“’Tis probably the National Guard assembling,” he said, in a half curious voice, to the still praying Abbé, when the first roll of the drum swept through the cold morning air.

32A few moments passed, and the trampling of horses’ hoofs at the foot of the tower attracted his attention. Then followed the voices of officers, giving military directions.

33“They are come,” he said.

34He spoke without impatience or fear, after the manner of a friend quietly waiting for a friend, and at last hearing the amicable step upon the stair.

35And now the King’s last torture—not his execution, for that was in mercy extended to him—commenced.

36Through two long hours was this poor man tortured by a refinement of cruelty for which there can be found no extenuation, to which no parallel can be discovered.

37Through these two hours came frequent summonses at the door. Upon each occasion the King rose, ready. Upon each occasion some poor, petty excuse was made. He himself (the King) opened the door, answered the wretch and coward who tortured him, bowed civilly when he learnt his presence was not required, and closing the door, waited until a fresh summons beat upon his heart.

38Ah, posterity cannot forgive those acts! Long must the question remain unsettled whether or not Louis XVI was rightfully put to death. Possibly he but paid the debt his ancestors had incurred. Millions had died of starvation. Taxes annihilated industry through generations previous to the uprising of the people. Even salt was weighted with a tax which caused it to be sold at an enormous rate—thirty pence a pound. Finally, Louis may have been guilty, as a man who was false to his oaths to keep the land of France free of enemies, of calling foreign help to France. It must be felt that when his throne was sinking from beneath him, other kings, in the interests of thrones, being desirous of maintaining Louis upon his, would willingly offer that foreign aid which it is felt Louis had been more than humanly self-denying in refusing. He fell a sacrifice to the errors of the two Louises who had preceded him on the throne—a blood compensation for the waste, luxury, and sensuality of half a dozen generations of French nobles.

39The measure of the people’s misery being full, they rose, and rose successfully. Their mistake—one which ultimately suffocated all the good it was intended they should effect—took the shape of success, intoxicating itself with victory.

40Give a lesson to kings not to exceed their duty—yes. All France knew that the English Revolution, which sent Charles I to the block, had resulted in a social condition in England which offered an example for France to follow.

41But having once passed upon a man the dignity of approaching death; having thrown round him the darkness of the coming tomb—to crush his heart—to humiliate him—to embitter his last moments—to play with his life as a cat with a poor, palpitating mouse—to try to resuscitate the desire to live—to seek to change the calmness of resignation back into the whirlpool of despair—these are not the acts of men, but demons.

42Yet let not these acts be set down to the people. In times of trouble, all the scum boils to the surface, and it is the surface we see, not the clarified water below it. Few, very few men completed the murders of September; seven-eighths of all France knew nothing about these wholesale murders until they were achieved.

43But the miserable attempt to torture the King’s last hour upon earth failed utterly—he was beyond attack. His soul had already passed away.

44At nine o’clock there was a tumultuous noise upon the staircase, and now there was a summons at the door. It was thrown open.

45As far as the King’s eyes could stretch were armed men—all gazing towards Louis.

46Santerre appeared, attended by twelve municipals, and ten gendarmes, all of whom fell into two lines in the apartment.

47The King turned to the little turret door, and with his hand upon it, looked towards Santerre.

48In this final moment all the reserve and imperiousness of a prince returned to Louis XVI.

49“You are come for me,” he said. “Await me—and for a mere moment.”

50He paused, closed the door, and knelt at the minister’s feet.

51“It is finished,” he said. “Bless me, and let me go.”

52A moment, and he rose, came out, placed himself smilingly between the double row of armed men. In his hand was a paper. It was his will. Addressing himself to the man who appeared to be the chief of the squad, he said, “I pray you to give this letter to the Queen.”

53The Republicans started, and the act reminded the King of the error he had committed.

54“To my wife,” he said, correcting himself, to please the Republican ears.

55“It’s no affair of mine,” replied the man addressed, and in savage tones. “I’m not here to carry messages to your wife, but to take you to the scaffold.”

56This unhappy creature, one Jacques Roux, had actually been a priest, who had thrown off the cassock and joined the revolutionary army.

57“True,” said the King, his head falling.

58But the name of a man in those ranks was to be made illustrious amongst pitying and tender-hearted men. The King, looking up, glanced rapidly along the two lines of faces to find one pitying look. His eyes rested upon one Gobeau, a man with a frightful name, but possessed of a far better heart.

59“I pray you give this paper to my wife.”

60Gobeau hesitated, and looked from the King to his comrades, from his comrades back to Louis.

61“You may read it—if you will. ’Tis but my wishes, which I trust the Commune may read.”

62The man Gobeau asked the consent of his comrades, and then took the paper.

63The morning was very cold, and to complete the resemblance between the fates of the two beheaded Kings, Charles I of England, and Louis XVI of France, exactly as Charles’s valet put a cloak round his master, so that he should not appear to tremble at the scaffold, so Cléry, knowing nothing of the parallel, put a cloak about his master.

64Both kings were beheaded towards the end of January.

65“I do not require a cloak,” he said. “Give me my hat.”

66As he took it, he shook the faithful Cléry’s hand. Then, turning to Santerre, and looking him full in the face, he said, “I am ready.”

67Santerre and his troop rather followed than escorted him.

68The King passed down the staircase slowly, and without any signs of tremor. Now, it is in descending a staircase that a man, convulsed by agitation, is almost sure to stumble.

69The King did not make one false step.

70Reaching the foot of the steps, the King encountered one Mathey.

71“Citizen Mathey,” said Louis, “you offended me very cruelly last night, and I replied angrily. For the sake of this hour, pray pardon me.”

72Mathey, instead of replying, pretended to turn his head away, and not see the King. However, it is only just to say, in some extenuation of the brutality of most of those to whom the King addressed himself during the last hour of his existence, that death was now so quickly dealt to any man whose words could be twisted into an expression of even pity for fallen royalty, that it was only at the risk of exposing life that a man could be humane in an answer to any question addressed to him by any one of the royal family.

73The King was now crossing the court-yard. He had achieved half the distance before his heart failed him; and, turning yearningly, he looked towards the tower within which the Queen was confined. A moment, and his face was towards the people glaring in at the gate. Once more he looked, as he passed out of the court-yard; then he, death, and eternity were alone!

74A carriage awaited him, an armed man standing each side the door. One of these men entered the carriage, and took a front seat; the King followed, and took the place of honor—the right, facing the horses. The Abbé Edgeworth followed, and sat beside Louis. The second gendarme now entered, and slammed and fastened the door, and the carriage was at once started.

75Sixty drums lead the way, incessantly sounding, and a mass of armed men surrounded the victim.

76The reign of terror had begun, in truth. A Governmental order had been issued, forbidding any citizen to show himself at a window; and the infraction of such an order was, in itself, probably a condemnation to death. The citizens were also forbidden to cross any of the streets upon the line of march.

77A strange effect was this procession.

78The morning was lowering, cold, dead, and damp; and the noisy sixty drums, purposely used to drown any cry that might be raised, led the way for a hurried, half-disciplined, half-armed horde of armed men; in their midst, a carriage, half-filled with two such as those who formed the escort.

79And this procession marched through a double row of steel—of pikes and bayonets, held by silent men. At distances were squads of the regulars, armed and prepared as for an action in the field.

80A strange sight! Thousands of armed men—soldiers with cannon and musket, prepared against a numerous foe; a swiftly passing crowd of men, armed to the teeth, jealously guarding a carriage half-filled with two such as they themselves were,—all against—what?

81Sixty drums beating to drown—utter silence! Two hundred thousand men, to keep order amongst—space! Armed men—and that was all!

82On the line, not a human being to be seen beyond the serried lines of armed men. Not a woman’s form for the eye to rest on—every window blind, every street passed, a desert. Paris was a city of the dead. Even the marketplaces were silent, and not even the voice of a child was to be heard.

83Cannon gaped at every street corner, the artillerymen holding lighted matches; in a word, on all sides were to be seen evidences of preparations to meet a formidable enemy—on not one was the shadow of an enemy to be seen.

84The King could scarcely be perceived though the forest of steel in which he was lost. He wore a brown coat and a white waistcoat. His hair was raised up already for the executioner’s hands.

85So great was the noise created by the drums, that he could not hear what the Abbé Edgeworth said, or even what he himself said to that self-devoted gentleman.

86Therefore he took the minister’s breviary, and opened it at those particular psalms which he had learnt in his captivity, suited to his situation. These he began to recite while the priest prayed beside him.

87It is said the expression of the two men-at-arms were those of astonishment and admiration.

88All these warlike preparations were met by the opposition of seven or eight opponents.

89The procession moved from the Temple up to the boulevards, the line of which was kept by the procession, until it reached the place of execution, on that spot which is now the Place de la Concorde. At that point on the line of march which now lies between the Portes St. Denis and St. Martin, occurred the one sign of any opposition to the tragedy which was about to be completed.

90There was a sudden stir; and, suddenly, seven or eight young men, sword in hand, rushed from the Rue Beauregard, dashed forward through the line of armed men, and even reached the carriage, they crying, “Help, help, those who would save the King!”

91The leader of these frantically-daring young men was one Baron de Batz, a man of extremely adventurous tendencies. Chiefly by his means, three thousand young men had combined to effect this diversion in the King’s favor, and they were to respond to the call to arms led by Batz.

92The three thousand made no reply; the seven or eight devoted men stood alone in the midst of nearly a quarter of a million of armed enemies.

93But some mercy was shown them, for those about them did not massacre the youths,—they were all very young. They even escaped into a side street; but here they were fallen upon by a squad of gendarmes, rapidly told off for that purpose; and being caught sword-in-hand, they were shot down, and left where they fell.