Chapter XII
The trial and execution of the king
A truce to personal squabbles having been for a moment agreed upon, the Convention was proceeding to discuss the new Constitution when, on the motion of the Mountain, the question of the disposal of the King was declared urgent. The popular resentment against the dethroned monarch had been growing for some time past. Continual addresses from the departments, as well as from the Paris sections, were being received praying for his condemnation. The usual legal questions being raised as to the power of any tribunal to try the sovereign, it was agreed by the Committee appointed to consider the matter, that though Louis had been inviolable as King of France, he was no longer so as the private individual Louis Capet. The Mountain vehemently attacked this view. St. Just, Robespierre, and others declared that these legal quibbles were an insult to the people's sovereignty, that the King had already been judged by virtue of the insurrection, and that nothing remained but his condemnation and execution. Just at this time an iron chest was found behind a panel of the Tuileries, containing damning proofs of Court intrigues with Mirabeau, and with the "emigrant" aristocrats, also indicating that the war with Austria had been urged on with a view to betraying the country and the Revolution. This naturally gave force to the demand for the immediate condemnation of Louis as a "traitor to the French and guilty towards humanity." The agitation was vigorously sustained in the Jacobins' club and in the sections, and the "moderate" party in the Assembly found itself com-
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