The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI

At these words a profound expression of disgust passed over the hearer's countenance, while he exchanged a glance with his wife, half hidden in the window recess.

"And you came to denounce this poisoning?"

"That and other things."

"Do you bring proof of your accusations?"

"For that matter, you have only to come with me to the Tuileries and I will give you piles of it. I will show you the secret hole in the wall where the brigand hid his hoard. I ought to have guessed that the wine was poisoned that the Austrian sneaked out to offer me, a-saying, with her wheedling voice: 'Here you are, Gamain! drink this glass of wine; it will do you good now the work is done.'"

"Poisoned?"

"Yes; everybody knows," continued Gamain, with sullen hate, "that those who help kings to conceal treasures never make old bones."

"There is something at the bottom of this," said Mme. Roland, coming forward at his glance; "this was the smith who was the king's tutor. Ask him about the hole in the wall."

"The press?" said Gamain, who had overheard. "Why, I am here to lay that open. It is an iron safe, with a lock-bolt working both ways, in which Citizen Capet hid his private papers and savings."

"How did you come to know about it?"

"Did he not send for me to show him how to finish the lock, one he made himself, and of course would not work smoothly?"

"But this press would be smashed and rifled in the capture of the Tuileries."

"There is no danger of that. I defy anybody in the world to get the idea of it, barring him and me."

"Are you sure?"

"Sure and certain. It is just the same as when he left the Tuileries."

"What do you say to all this, Madeleine?" asked Roland of his wife, when they had listened to Gamain's story, told in his prolix style.

"I say the revelation is of the utmost importance, and no time must be lost in verifying it."

The secretary rang for his carriage, whereupon Gamain stood up sulkily.

"I see you have had enough of me," he grumbled.

"Why, no; I only ring for my carriage."

"What! do ministers have carriages under the Republic?"

"They have to do so, to save time, my friend. I call the carriage so that we shall be quickly at the Tuileries. But what about the key to the safe? – it is not likely Louis XVI. left it in the key-hole."

"Why, certainly not, for our fat Capet is not such a fool as he looks. Here is a duplicate," he continued, drawing a new key from his pocket; "I made it from memory. I tell you I am the master of my craft. I studied the lock, fancying some day – "

"This is an awful scoundrel," said Roland to his wife.

"Yes; but we have no right to reject any information coming to us in the present state of affairs in order to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Am I to go with you?" asked the lady.

"Certainly, as there are papers in the case. Are you not the most honest man I know?"

Gamain followed them to the door, mumbling:

"I always said that I would pay old Capet out for what he did to me. What Louis XVI. did was kindness."

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE TRIAL OF THE KING

On the seventh of November the Girondists began the indictment against the king, assisted by the fatal deposit of papers in the iron safe, although those were missing which were confided to Mme. Campan. After Gamain's opening the press, which was to have so severe an effect on the prisoners in the temple, Roland had taken them all to his office, where he read them and docketed them, though he vainly searched for the evidence of Danton's oft-cited venality. Besides, Danton had resigned as Minister of Justice.

This great trial was to crown the victory of Valmy, which had made the defeated King of Prussia almost as angry as the news of the proclamation of the Republic in Paris.

This trial was another step toward the goal to which men blundered like the blind, always excepting the Invisibles; they saw things in the mass, 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 the indulgent party, it was difficult for the wish not to be outrun by the deed; yet only a few of the Convention comprehended that royalty should be extirpated, and not the royal person slain.

Royalty was a somber abstraction, a menacing mystery of which men were weary, a whited sepulcher, fair without, but full of rottenness.

But the king was a different matter; a man who was far from interesting in his prosperity, but purified by misfortune and made great by captivity. Even on the queen the magic of adversity was such that she had learned, not to love – for her broken heart was a shattered vase from which the precious ointment had leaked out – but to venerate and adore, in the religious sense of the word, this prince, though a man whose bodily appetite and vulgar instincts had so often caused her to blush.

Royalty smitten with death, but the king kept in perpetual imprisonment, was a conception so grand and mighty that but few entertained it.

"The king must stand trial," said the ex-priest Gregoire to the Convention; "but he has done so much to earn scorn that we have no room for hatred."

And Tom Paine wrote:

"I entreat you to go on with the trial, not so much of this king as the whole band of them; the case of this individual whom you have in your power will put you on the track of all. Louis XVI. is useful as showing the necessity of revolutions."

So great minds like Paine and great hearts like Gregoire were in tune on this point. The kings were to be tried, and Louis might even be allowed to turn state's evidence.

This has never been done, but it is good yet to do. Suppose the charge against the Empress Catherine, Pasiphæ of the north; who will say there would not come out instruction to the world from such a revelation?

To the great disappointment of the Rolands, we repeat, the papers in the iron safe did not compromise Dumouriez and Danton, while they earned Gamain a pension, little alleviating the pangs of his ailment, which made him a thousand times regret the guillotine to which he consigned his master. But they injured the king and the priests, showing up the narrow mind, sharp and ungrateful, of Louis, who only hated 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-bearer and float over the court like the destroying angel? St. Just, the pet of Robespierre, a pale young man with womanly lips, who uttered the atrocious words. The point was that the king must be killed. The speech made a terrible impression; not one of the judges but felt the repeated word enter his soul like steel. Robespierre was appalled to see his disciple plant the red flag of revolution so far ahead of the most advanced outposts of republicanism.

As time progressed, the watch over the prisoners was closer, and Clery could learn nothing; but he picked up a newspaper stating that Louis would be brought before the bar of the House on the eleventh of December.

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 tell the captives the meaning of the unusual stir.

Breakfast was the last meal they partook of in company; when they parted, 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; "I believe you are bad luck!"

The king was struck by the figure.

At eleven the dauphin was removed and the king left in silence, as the officials did not intrude, for fear he would question them. At one o'clock Santerre arrived with officers, and a registrar who read the decree calling "the prisoner Louis Capet" before the House.