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 compelled to give heed to the popular outcry, at least up to a certain point. The Convention by a considerable majority decided against the extreme right, who urged the inviolability of the King, and also against those Mountainists who pressed for a condemnation without trial. It was determined to bring the ex-King to the bar of the Convention. The act declaratory of the Royal crimes was then prepared.
Meanwhile Louis was being strictly guarded in the "Temple," where he had now been confined nearly four months. He had recently been separated from his family, the Commune fearing the concerting of plots of escape. Only one servant was allotted to the whole family. Louis amused himself at this time with reading Hume's History of England, especially the parts relating to Charles I. On the vote of the Convention being declared, Santerre, the commandant of the National Guard, was commissioned to conduct Louis to the bar of the National Assembly. This took place on the 11th of December. The coach passed through drizzling rain, scowling crowds, and through streets filled with troops. Arrived at the hall of the Convention, the Mayor of Paris, Chabot, and the Procureur, Chaumette, who had sat with the King in the vehicle, delivered him over to Santerre who had been in attendance outside. The latter, laying hold of Louis by the arm, led him to the bar of the Convention. Barére, the President, after a moment's delay, greeted him with the words, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you are now about to hear the act of accusation, Louis, you may sit down." There were fifty-seven counts of the indictment relating to acts of despotism, conspiracies, secret intrigues, the flight to Varennes, and what not. On the conclusion of the speech for the prosecution, which lasted three hours, Louis was removed back to his prison. He had demanded legal counsel, so the Convention decided after some discussion to allow his old friend Meleherbes, with two others. Tronchet and Déséze, to undertake the office. It was the latter who delivered the speech on the day of the defence, which consisted partly in the old arguments anent royal inviolability and partly in a statement of Louis’s services to the people. "The people," said Déséze, "desired that a disastrous impost should be abolished, and Louis abolished it; the people asked for the abolition of servitudes, and Louis abolished them; they demanded reforms, and he consented to them," etc., etc. The speech concluded with an eloquent peroration calling upon history to judge the decision of the Convention. The cowardly Girondins, although it was well-known they had previously been in favor of the King's life, did not have the courage at this moment to make a definite stand one way or the other. They contented themselves with proposing to declare Louis guilty, but to leave the question of punishment to the primary assemblies of the people. This proposition, which would probably have meant civil war, was vehemently opposed by the Mountain and rejected, and the Convention, after having unanimously voted Louis guilty, resolved on considering the question of punishment. The popular ferment outside the Convention was immense, and sentence of death was loudly demanded. After forty hours, the final vote was taken, and Louis condemned to "death without respite," i. e., within twenty-four hours, by a majority of 26 in an assembly of 721. In vain did the defenders urge the smallness of the majority; the Mountain, which now for the first time dominated the Convention, showed itself inexorable.
On Monday, the 21st of January, 1793, the execution took place. Louis, who had taken leave of his family the previous day, was awakened at five o'clock. Shortly after, Santerre arrived to announce that it was the hour to depart. At the same time the murmur of crowds and the rumbling of cannon were heard outside. The carriage took upwards of an hour to pass through the streets, which were lined with military. At length the Place de la Révolution was reached, and Louis ascended the scaffold. He was beginning to protest his innocence, when on the signal of Santerre his voice was drowned by the beating of drums, the executioner seized him, and in a moment all was over.
The death of Louis was probably necessary for the safety of the Republic at the time, but one cannot help having some pity for one whose worst offences were a certain feebleness and good nature which made him the ready tool of a cruel, unscrupulous and designing woman. It should be noted, as regards the decree in the Convention, that, unlike the Girondins, plucky Tom Paine, up to the last, manfully voted in the sense in which he had always spoken, viz., for the life of the King, and this at the imminent risk of his own. Notwithstanding this act, a grateful Respectability (which afterwards tried to exalt the feeble Louis into a hero and a martyr) has ever since heaped every vile calumny on poor Paine's memory.