CHAPTER XXVI.
THE TRIAL OF THE KING.
On the seventh of November the Girondists began the indictment againstthe king, assisted by the fatal deposit of papers in the iron safe,although those were missing which were confided to Mme. Campan. AfterGamain's opening the press, which was to have so severe an effect onthe prisoners in the temple, Roland had taken them all to his office,where he read them and docketed them, though he vainly searched for theevidence of Danton's oft-cited venality. Besides, Danton had resignedas Minister of Justice.
This great trial was to crown the victory of Valmy, which had madethe defeated King of Prussia almost as angry as the news of theproclamation of the Republic in Paris.
This trial was another step toward the goal to which men blundered likethe blind, always excepting the Invisibles; they saw things in themass, but not in detail. Alone on the horizon stood the red guillotine,with the king at the foot of the scaffold on which it rose.
In a materialistic era, when such a man as Danton was the head of theindulgent party, it was difficult for the wish not to be outrun by thedeed; yet only a few of the Convention comprehended that royalty shouldbe extirpated, and not the royal person slain.
Royalty was a somber abstraction, a menacing mystery of which men wereweary, a whited sepulcher, fair without, but full of rottenness.
But the king was a different matter; a man who was far from interestingin his prosperity, but purified by misfortune and made great bycaptivity. Even on the queen the magic of adversity was such that shehad learned, not to love--for her broken heart was a shattered vasefrom which the precious ointment had leaked out--but to venerate andadore, in the religious sense of the word, this prince, though a manwhose bodily appetite and vulgar instincts had so often caused her toblush.
Royalty smitten with death, but the king kept in perpetualimprisonment, was a conception so grand and mighty that but fewentertained it.
"The king must stand trial," said the ex-priest Gregoire to theConvention; "but he has done so much to earn scorn that we have no roomfor hatred."
And Tom Paine wrote:
"I entreat you to go on with the trial, not so much of this king as thewhole band of them; the case of this individual whom you have in yourpower will put you on the track of all. Louis XVI. is useful as showingthe necessity of revolutions."
So great minds like Paine and great hearts like Gregoire were in tuneon this point. The kings were to be tried, and Louis might even beallowed to turn state's evidence.
This has never been done, but it is good yet to do. Suppose the chargeagainst the Empress Catherine, Pasiphae of the north; who will say therewould not come out instruction to the world from such a revelation?
To the great disappointment of the Rolands, we repeat, the papers inthe iron safe did not compromise Dumouriez and Danton, while theyearned Gamain a pension, little alleviating the pangs of his ailment,which made him a thousand times regret the guillotine to which heconsigned his master. But they injured the king and the priests,showing up the narrow mind, sharp and ungrateful, of Louis, who onlyhated those who wanted to save him--Necker, Lafayette, and Mirabeau.There was nothing detrimental to the Girondists.
Who was to read the dread indictment? Who was to be the sword-bearerand float over the court like the destroying angel? St. Just, the petof Robespierre, a pale young man with womanly lips, who uttered theatrocious words. The point was that the king must be killed. The speechmade a terrible impression; not one of the judges but felt the repeatedword enter his soul like steel. Robespierre was appalled to see hisdisciple plant the red flag of revolution so far ahead of the mostadvanced outposts of republicanism.
As time progressed, the watch over the prisoners was closer, andClery could learn nothing; but he picked up a newspaper stating thatLouis would be brought before the bar of the House on the eleventh ofDecember.
Indeed, at five that morning the reveille was beaten all over Paris.The temple gates were opened to bring in cannon; but no one would tellthe captives the meaning of the unusual stir.
Breakfast was the last meal they partook of in company; when theyparted, the prince was left playing a numerical game with his father,who kept the truth from him.
"Curse sixteen," said the boy, on losing three times running; "Ibelieve you are bad luck!"
The king was struck by the figure.
At eleven the dauphin was removed and the king left in silence, as theofficials did not intrude, for fear he would question them. At oneo'clock Santerre arrived with officers, and a registrar who read thedecree calling "the prisoner Louis Capet" before the House.
The king interrupted to say that Capet was not his name, but that of anancestor. He stopped the reading on the grounds that he had read it inthe papers.
As it was raining, they had a carriage in which to carry him.
On alighting, Santerre laid his hand on his shoulder and led him to thesame spot at the bar, by the same chair, where he had taken the oath tothe Constitution.
All the members save one had kept their seats as he entered; this onesaluted him. The astonished king recognized Gilbert. He wished himgood-day.
"Are you acquainted with Doctor Gilbert?" asked Santerre.
"He was my physician once, so I hope no ill feeling will be harboredbecause he was polite to me."
The examination began. Unfortunately, the glamour of misfortunevanished before duplicity; not only did the king answer the questionsput to him, but he did so badly, stammering, hesitating, trying toevade direct issues, chaffering for his life like a pettifogger arguinga party-fence case in a county court.
The king did not appear at his best in broad day.
The examination lasted five hours. Though he refused refreshmentoffered, he asked a grenadier for a piece of the bread he saw himeating.
On crossing the yard to step into the carriage, the mob sung withmarked emphasis the line of the "Marseillaise" about "the impure bloodshould fertilize our furrows."
This made him lose color.
The return was miserable. In the public hack, swaying on the black,pestiferous, vile pavement, while the mob surged up to the windows tosee him, he blinked his eyes at the daylight; his beard was long, andhis thin hair of a dirty yellow hue; his thin cheeks fell in folds onhis wrinkled neck; clad in a gray suit, with a dark-brown overcoat, hemumbled with the Bourbon's automatic memory: "This is such and such astreet."
On remarking that Orleans Street had been changed to Egalite, onaccount of the duke having dropped his titles, though that did not savehim from the guillotine, he fell into silence, and so returned intoprison.
He was not allowed to see his family, and had to go to bed without themeal with them.
"Ah, Clery!" he said to his man, as he undressed him, "I little dreamedwhat questions they were going to put to me."
Indeed, almost all the inquiry was based on the contents of the ironsafe, which he did not suspect was discovered, from having no idea thatGamain had betrayed him.
Nevertheless, he soon sunk to sleep with that tranquillity of which hehad given so many proofs, and which might be taken for lethargy.
But the other prisoners did not bear the separation and the secrecy sotamely.
In the morning the queen asked to see her husband, but the onlyarrangement offered was that the king might see his children oncondition that they should not see their mother or aunt any more. Theking refused this plan.
Consequently, the queen had her son's bed put in her rooms, and she didnot quit him till removed for trial by the Revolutionary Tribunal, asher husband was by the Convention.
Clery, however, worked communications with a servant of the princessesnamed Turgy. They exchanged a few words, and passed notes scratchedwith pins on scraps of paper, on the ladies' side; the king couldwrite properly, as he had writing materials supplied since his trialcommenced.
By means of a string, collected from the pieces around the packets ofcandles, Clery lowered pens, ink, and paper to Princess Elizabeth,whose window was bel
ow that of the valet's room.
Hence the family had news of one another daily.
On the other hand, the king's position was morally much worse since hehad appeared before the Convention.
It had been surmised that he would either refuse to answer anyinterrogation, like Charles I., whose history he knew so well; or elsethat he would answer proudly and loftily in the name of royalty, notlike an accused criminal, but a knight accepting the gage of battle.
Unfortunately, Louis was not regal enough to do either act. He soentangled himself that he had to ask for counsel. The one he namedfearing to accept the task, it fell to Malesherbes, who had been inthe Turgot Ministry, a commonplace man in whom little did any suspectcontempt for death. (On the day of his execution, for he was beheaded,he wound up his watch as usual.) Throughout the trial he styled theking "Sire."
Attacked by a flow of blood to the head, the king asked for Dr. Gilbertto be allowed to attend him, but the application was refused, and hewas brutally told that if he drank cold water he would not have sucha fullness of blood. As he was not allowed a knife to carve his food,unless a servant did it before the guards, so he was not let shave butin the presence of four municipal officers.
On the evening of the twenty-fifth he wrote his will, in which he saidthat he did not blame himself for any of the crimes of which he wasaccused. He did not say that they were false. This evasive responsewas worthy the pupil of the Duke of Vauguyon.
In any case, the twenty-sixth found him ready for any fate, deathincluded.
His counsel read the defense, which was a purely legal document. Itseems to us that if we had been charged with it, we should not havespoken for the law, but let St. Louis and Henry IV. defend theirdescendants from the crimes of their intermediate successors.
The more unjust the accusation, the more eloquent should have been therejoinder.
Hence the Convention asked, in astonishment:
"Have you nothing more to say in your defense?"
He had nothing to say, and went back to the temple. When his defendercalled in the evening, he told him of a number of gentlemen who werepledged to prevent the execution.
"If you do not know them personally," said the king to LamoignonMalesherbes, "try to come in touch with them and tell them that I willnever forgive myself for blood shed on my behalf. I would not have itspilled to save my throne and life, when that was possible; all themore reason for me not allowing it now."
The voting on the 16th of January, 1793, was on three points:
Is Louis guilty? Shall there be an appeal from the Convention to thepeople? State the penalty.
To the first question was the answer of 683 voices, "Yes."
To the appeal question, 281 ayes and 423 noes.
The third decision of the penalty was subdivided into death,imprisonment, banishment, or death, with the people allowed to reduceit to imprisonment.
All tokens of approval or displeasure were prohibited, but when amember said anything but death, murmurs arose.
Once there were groans and hisses when a member spoke for death--whenPhilippe Egalite cast his vote for the execution of his kinsman.
The majority for death was seven, and Vergniaud uttered the sentencewith deep emotion.
It was three on the morning of the twentieth, Sunday.
The illustrious culprit was up when Malesherbes bore him the news.
"I was sure of it," he said, shaking hands with his defender. "For twodays I have been trying to find if I have merited my subjects' reproachfor what I have done in the course of my reign. I swear to you in allsincerity, as a man about to appear before his Maker, that I havealways wished the happiness of my people, and have not framed a wishcontrary to it."
The death-warrant was officially read to him, and he was allowed tochoose his own confessor.
The name of one had been already written down by Princess Elizabeth,whose confessor this Abbe Edgeworth was.