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

This worthy priest, of English origin, had escaped the September massacres and was hiding out at Choisy, under the name of Essex, as the Princess Elizabeth knew, and where to find him.

He came to the call, though he believed that he would be killed within an hour of the dreadful scene.

He was not to quit the prisoner till he quitted the world.

The king was allowed to take farewell of his family in the dining-room, where the glass door allowed the guards still to keep him in sight. They knew the trial had taken place, but not the particulars, with which he supplied them. He dwelt particularly on the fact that Petion had not pressed for the death penalty, and that Gilbert had voted to spare his life.

Heaven owed the poor prisoner some comfort, and it came in the love of the queen.

As has been seen in our story, the queen easily let the picturesque side of life attract her. She had that vivid imagination which makes women imprudent even more than disposed; she had been imprudent all her life in her friendship and in her loving.

Her captivity saved her in a moral point of view; she returned to the pure and holy domestic virtues from which youthful passions had led her; and as she could do nothing without extravagance, she fell to loving passionately, in his distress, this royal consort whose vulgar traits were all she could see in the days of felicity. In their first disasters she saw a dullard, almost cowardly, without impulse or resolution; at the temple she began to see that the wife had not only misjudged the husband, but the queen the monarch. She beheld one calm and patient, meek but firm under outrages; all the worldly dryness in her was melted, and turned to the profit of better sentiments.

The same as she had scorned too deeply, she loved too fondly.

"Alas!" the king said to his confessor, "to think that I love so dearly and am loved so much."

In their last interview, the queen seemed to yield to a feeling akin to remorse. When she found that she could not be alone with her lord, she drew him into a window recess, where she would have fallen on her knees at his feet; but he understood that she wanted to ask his forgiveness, so he stayed her and drew his will from his pocket to show her the lines:

"I pray my wife to forgive all the woes I have led her to suffer and the sorrows caused her in the course of our union, as she may be sure that I cherish no ill feeling toward her, if she should think that she had reason to blame herself in any way."

Marie kissed his hands, for while there was full pardon, there was great delicacy, too, in the rest of the phrase.

So this royal Magdalen might die tranquil, late as came her love for her husband, it won her divine and human mercy, and her pardon was bestowed on earth, not in a mysterious whisper as an indulgence, of which the king felt ashamed, but openly and publicly.

Who would reproach her who went toward posterity with the double crown of the martyr and her husband's forgiveness?

The poignant farewell lasted nearly two hours before the condemned went out to his priest.

As day began to break, the drums were beaten throughout the town; the bustle and the sound penetrated the old tower and chilled the blood of the priest and Clery.

At nine o'clock the noise increased and the doors were loudly flung open. Santerre came in, followed by town officers and soldiers, who formed a double row.

The king received the priest's blessing and a prayer for support, and called for his hat, as all the others had kept their hats on. Seeing that Clery had his overcoat ready for fear he would be cold, and the shiver would be taken for that of fright, he said:

"No; nothing but my hat."

He took advantage of the act to shake his hand for the last time.

"Let us go, gentlemen," he said, with the tone of command so rarely used by him.

In crossing the first yard, he turned two or three times to wave a farewell to his dear ones.

With the priest he stepped into a hack, and the procession started, leaving the queen no hope save for a rescue on the road. That of a respite had already vanished.

She fell into a chair, sobbing: "To think of his going without saying good-bye!"

The streets were foggy and deserted, as all citizens were forbidden to be about unless belonging to the armed militia, and there were no faces up at the windows.

All the prisoner saw was a forest of pikes and bayonets, with a large drum corps before the party and cavalry around.

The clamor prevented the king talking with the confessor, who read his prayer-book.

At St. Denis Gate the king lifted his head, for the uproar was marked by a change in the shouts. A dozen young men, sword in hand, rushed through the retinue and shouted:

"Rescue! This way, those who would save the king!"

One Baron de Batz, an adventurer, had engaged three thousand bravoes to make this attempt, but only a handful responded when he sounded the signal-cry. This forlorn hope of royalty, meeting no reply, retreated and slipped away in the confusion.

The incident was of such slight importance that the carriage did not stop; it was at its journey's end when it did.

One of the three brothers Sanson, the Paris executioners, came to open the door.

Laying his hand on the abbe's knee, the king said, in the tone of a master:

"Gentlemen, I recommend this gentleman to you. Take care of him after my death, for he has done nobody harm."

He threw off his coat, not to be touched by the headsman. One had a rope to bind his hands, but he said he would not submit to it. A hand-to-hand fight would rob the victim of all the merit of six months' calmness, courage, and resignation, so the confessor advised him to yield, particularly as one of the Sansons, moved with pity, offered to substitute a handkerchief.

He held out his hands resignedly, saying:

"Do as you like. I shall drain the chalice to the dregs."

The scaffold steps were high and slippery, and he had the priest's arm for support, but on the top step he escaped, so to say, from the spiritual guide, and went to the further end of the platform.

He was flushed in the face, and had never appeared more hale or animated.

The drums began to beat, but he imposed silence by a look as, with a lusty voice, he said:

"I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I forgive the authors of my death, and I pray God that this blood shall not fall on France."

"Strike up, drums!" roared a voice long believed to be Santerre's, but was that of Beaufranchet, Count Oyat, illegitimate son of Louis XV., and a courtesan, the prisoner's natural uncle.

The drums beat, and the king stamped his foot in vain.

"Do your duty!" yelled the pikemen to the executioners, who threw themselves on the king.

He returned with slow steps under the knife, of which he had designed the proper shape only a year ago.

He glanced at the priest who was praying at a corner of the scaffold.

Behind the two upright beams a scuffle went on. The tilting flap fell into place, and the prisoner's head appeared in the ominous gap. A flash, a dull, chopping sound was heard, and a large jet of blood spouted forth.

Then, one of the death's-men taking up the head, sprinkled the by-standers with the dripping fluid. At this sight the pikemen whooped and rushed to dye their weapons in the blood, which they ran to show the town, with shouts of "Long live the Republic!"

For the first time this cry found no echo, though it had oft thrilled hearers with joy. The Republic had a stain on the brow which nothing ever could efface. As a great diplomatist said, it had committed worse than a crime – a blunder.

Thus died, on the 21st of January, 1793, King Louis XVI. He was aged thirty-nine years. He had reigned eighteen, and was over five months a prisoner. His last wish was not accomplished, for his blood not only fell on France, but over the whole of Europe.