Chapter XIX: Execution

Such were the memorable sessions of the National Assembly of the 15th, 17th, 19th and 20th of January, 1793.

Glory to the men of energy, to the inexorable patriots!

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JANUARY 21, 1793.--The execution of Louis Capet took place to-day, Monday, the 21st of January, 1793!

My sister and I were present at the death of Louis. A vast throng filled the Place of the Revolution. The scaffold faced the avenue of the Elysian Fields, a short distance from the spot occupied by the statue of Louis XV.

At ten minutes past ten in the morning, a dull rumor, drawing nearer and nearer, announced the arrival of the condemned. My sister and I were not far from the scaffold, behind a line of Municipal Guards. We beheld a two-horse carriage draw up, accompanied by General Santerre and several officers of his staff. Claude Bernard and James Roux, an ex-priest, the municipal officers charged with guarding Capet, alighted first from the carriage, where Louis remained for two minutes' space with his confessor. Then, with firm tread, and supported by the executioners, he ascended the steps of the platform. He was clad in grey trousers and a soft white waistcoat; his purpled face betrayed intense excitement. Suddenly he stepped to the edge of the scaffold, and cried to the people:

"Frenchmen, I am innocent--"

At Santerre's command the roll of drums drowned the rest of the speech. Louis XVI cast a look of rage at the drummers, and cried to them angrily to desist.

The drumming continued. Louis Capet was turned over to Sampson, the executioner-in-chief, and his aides. A few seconds later, the sixty-sixth of these foreign Kings of Gaul had paid the penalty of his crimes, had expiated the wrongs of the monarchy of which he was the last incarnation.

The King's head, held up to the people by the headsman, was greeted with the shouts of the multitude.

No. 155 of Marat's journal terminates its account of the execution of Capet with the following reflections:

"The head of the tyrant has just fallen under the sword of the law; that same blow has overthrown the foundation of monarchy among us. I now believe in the Republic.... Not a voice cried for grace during the execution; a profound silence reigned about the scaffold. But when the head of Capet was shown to the people, from all sides rose the cries, 'Long live the Nation! Long live the Republic!' The execution of Louis XVI is one of those memorable events which mark epochs in the life of nations. It will have an immense influence on the fate of the despots of Europe and on those peoples who have as yet not broken their chains."

Robespierre, in a letter to one of his constituents (second trimester, page 3), penned the following appreciation of the consequences of the great political occurrence:

"Citizens, the tyrant is fallen under the sword of the law. This great act of justice has struck consternation to the hearts of the aristocracy, annihilated the superstition of royalty, and created the Republic. It imparts a character of grandeur to the Convention, and makes it worthy the confidence of France. The imposing and majestic attitude of the people in this solemn hour will cause the tyrants of earth more terror than even the death of their fellow. A profound silence surrounded the scaffold up to the moment the head of Louis XVI fell. That instant, the air shook with the unanimous shout of a hundred thousand citizens, 'Long live the Republic!' It was not the barbarous curiosity of men who came to feast their eyes on the death of a fellow-being; it was the powerful interest of a people, impassioned for liberty, and assuring itself of the fact that royalty had breathed its last.... Formerly, when a King died at Versailles, the reign of his successor was immediately ushered in to the tune of 'The King is dead, long live the King!' as if to make the nation understand that despotism was immortal. This time, a whole people, with a sublime instinct, acclaimed: 'Long live the Republic,' to teach a universe that tyranny had died with the tyrant."

May the same lot be reserved for all the Kings.