headed in the midst of his own metropolis, in the Place Louis Quinze, erected to the memory of his grandfather. It is possible for the critical eye of the historian to discover much weakness in the conduct of this unhappy monarch; for he had neither the determination necessary to fight for his rights, nor the power of submitting with apparent indifference to circumstances, where resistance inferred danger. He submitted, indeed, but with so bad a grace, that he only made himself suspected of cowardice, without getting credit for voluntary concession. But yet his behaviour, on many trying occasions, effectually vindicated him from the charge of timidity, and showed that the unwillingness to shed blood, by which he was peculiarly distinguished, arose from benevolence, not from pusillanimity.

Upon the scaffold, he behaved with the firmness which became a noble spirit, and the patience beseeming one who was reconciled to Heaven. As one of the few marks of sympathy with which his sufferings were softened, the attendance of a confessor, who had not taken the constitutional oath, was permitted to the dethroned monarch. He who undertook the honourable but dangerous office, was a gentleman of the gifted family of Edgeworth of Edgeworthstown; and the devoted zeal with which he rendered the last duties to Louis, had like in the issue to have proved fatal to himself. As the instrument of death descended, ittle packet contains the hair of all my family, you will give her that too. Tell the Queen, my dear children, and my sister, that although I promised to see them again this morning, I have resolved to spare them the pangs of so cruel a separation; tell them how much it costs me to go without receiving their embraces once more!' He wiped away some tears; then added, in the most mournful accents, I charge you to bear them my last farewell.""CLERY, p. 249.

"On the morning of this terrible day, the princesses rose at six. The night before, the Queen had scarcely strength enough to put her son to bed. She threw herself, dressed as she was, upon her own bed, where she was heard shivering with cold and grief all night long. At a quarter-past six, the door opened; the princesses believed that they were sent for to see the King, but it was only the officers looking for a prayer-book for the King's mass; they did not, however, abandon the hope of seeing him, till the shouts of joy of the unprincipled populace came to tell them that all was over."-DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME, p. 52.

"The procession from the Temple to the place of execution lasted nearly two hours. As soon as the carriage stopped, the King whispered to me, 'We are at the end of our journey, if I mistake not.' My silence answered that we were. One of the guards came to open the door, and the gens-d'armes would have jumped out, but the King stopped them, and leaning his arm on my knee, Gentlemen,' said he, with the tone of majesty, I recommend to you this good man; take care that after my death no insult be offered to him-I charge you to prevent it.' As soon as the King had left the carriage, three guards surrounded him, and would have taken off his clothes, but he repulsed them with dignity; he undressed himself, untied his neckcloth, opened his shirt, and arranged it himself. The path leading to the scaffold was extremely rough, and from the slowness with which the King proceeded, I feared for a moment that his courage might be failing; but what was my astonishment, when, arrived at the last step, I felt him suddenly let go my arm, and saw him cross with a firm foot the breadth of the whole scaffold; he silenced, by his look alone, fifteen or twenty drums; and I heard him, in a loud voice, pronounce distinctly these memorable words, 'I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France. He was proceeding, when a man on horseback, in the national uniform, (San

1793.]

LOUIS'S LAST TESTAMENT.

255

the confessor pronounced the impressive words,-" Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven!"

There was a last will of Louis XVI. circulated upon good authority, bearing this remarkable passage:-" I recommend to my son, should he have the misfortune to become King, to recollect, that his whole faculties are due to the service of the public; that he ought to consult the happiness of his people, by governing according to the laws, forgetting all injuries and misfortunes, and in particular those which I may have sustained. But, while I exhort him to govern under the authority of the laws, I cannot but add, that this will be only in his power, in so far as he shall be endowed with authority to cause right to be respected, and wrong punished; and that, without such authority, his situation in the government must be more hurtful than advantageous to the state."1

Not to mingle the fate of the illustrious victims of the royal family with the general tale of the sufferers under the Reign of Terror, we must here mention the deaths of the rest of that illustrious house, which closed for a time a monarchy, that, existing through three dynasties, had given sixty-six kings to France.

It was not to be supposed, that the Queen was to be long permitted to survive her husband. She had been even more than he the object of revolutionary detestation; nay, many were disposed to throw on Marie Antoinette, almost exclusively, the blame of those measures, which they considered as counter-revolutionary. She came to France a gay, young, and beautiful princess-she found in her husband a faithful, affectionate, almost an uxorious husband. In the early years of her reign she was guilty of two faults.

In the first place, she dispensed too much with court-etiquette, and wished too often to enjoy a retirement and freedom, inconsistent with her high rank and the customs of the court. This was a great though natural mistake. The etiquette of a court places round the great personages whom it regards, a close and troublesome watch, but that very guard acts as a barrier against calumny; and when these formal witnesses are withdrawn, evil tongues are never wanting to supply with infamous reports a blank, which no testimony can be brought to fill up with the truth. No individual suffered more than Marie Antoinette from this species of slander, which imputed the most scandalous occupations to hours that were only meant to be stolen from form and

terre,) waved his sword, and ordered the drums to beat. Upon which, the executioners, seizing the King with violence, dragged him under the axe of the guillotine, which, with one stroke, severed his head from his body.”—ABBE EDGEWORTH, Last Hours of Louis XVI., p. 84.

"The day after the execution, the municipality published the will, as a proof of the fanaticism and crimes of the King."-LACRETELLE, tom. x., p. 254.

from state, and devoted to the ease which crowned heads ought never to dream of enjoying.

Another natural, yet equally false step, was her interfering more frequently with politics than became her sex; exhibiting thus her power over the King, and at the same time lowering him in the eyes of his subjects, who, whatever be the auspices under which their own domestic affairs are conducted, are always scandalized if they see, or think they see, any thing like female influence directing the councils of their sovereigns. We are uncertain what degree of credit is to be given to the Memoirs of Bezenval, but we believe they approach near the truth in representing the Queen as desirous of having a party of her own, and carrying points in opposition to the ministers; and we know that a general belief of this sort was the first foundation of the fatal report, that an Austrian cabal existed in the Court of France, under the direction of the Queen, which was supposed to sacrifice the interests of France to favour those of the Emperor of Germany.

The terms of her accusation were too basely depraved to be even hinted at here. She scorned to reply to it, but appealed to all who had been mothers, against the very possibility of the horrors which were stated against her.1 The widow of a king, the sister of an emperor, was condemned to death, dragged in an open tumbril to the place of execution, and beheaded on the 16th October, 1793. She suffered death in her thirty-ninth year.2

The Princess Elizabeth, sister of Louis, of whom it might be said, in the words of Lord Clarendon, that she resembled a chapel in a king's palace, into which nothing but piety and morality enter, while all around is filled with sin, idleness, and folly, did not, by the most harmless demeanour and inoffensive character, escape the miserable fate in which the Jacobins had determined to involve the whole family of Louis XVI. Part of the accusation redounded to the honour of her character. She was accused of having admitted to the apartments of the Tuileries some of the national guards, of the section of Filles de Saint Thomas, and causing the wounds to be looked to which they had received in a skirmish with the Marseillois, immediately before the 10th of August. The princess admitted her having done so, and it was

"Si je n'ai pas répondu, c'est que la nature se refuse à répondre à une pareille inculpation faite à une mère." (Ici l'accusée paroit vivement émue,) "J'en appelle à toutes celles qui peuvent se trouver ici."-Procès de Marie Antoinette, p. 29.

2 "Sorrow had blanched her once beautiful hair; but her features and air still commanded the admiration of all who beheld her. Her cheeks, pale and emaciated, were occasionally tinged with a vivid colour at the mention of those she had lost. When led out to execution, she was dressed in white; she had cut off her hair with her own hands. Placed in a tumbril, with her arms tied behind her, she was taken by a circuitous route to the Place de la Révolution, and she ascended the scaffold with a firm and dignified step, as if she had been about to take her place on a throne, by the side of her husband."-LACRETELLE, tom. xi., p. 261.

1795.]

DEATH OF THE DAUPHIN.

257 exactly in consistence with her whole conduct. Another charge stated the ridiculous accusation, that she had distributed bullets chewed by herself and her attendants, to render them more fatal, to the defenders of the castle of the Tuileries; a ridiculous fable, of which there was no proof whatever. She was beheaded in May, 1794, and met her death as became the manner in which her life had been spent.'

We are weary of recounting these atrocities, as others must be of reading them. Yet it is not useless that men should see how far human nature can be carried, in contradiction to every feeling the most sacred, to every pleading whether of justice or of humanity. The Dauphin we have already described as a promising child of seven years old, an age at which no offence could have been given, and from which no danger could have been apprehended. Nevertheless, it was resolved to destroy the innocent child, and by means to which ordinary murders seem deeds of mercy.

The unhappy boy was put in charge of the most hard-hearted villain whom the Community of Paris, well acquainted where such agents were to be found, were able to select from their band of Jacobins. This wretch, a shoemaker called Simon, asked his employers, "What was to be done with the young wolf-whelp; was he to be slain?"- "No."—" Poisoned?"_"No."-" Starved to death?""No."-" What then?"-" He was to be got rid of."2 Accordingly, by a continuance of the most severe treatment; by beating, cold, vigils, fasts, and ill usage of every kind, so frail a blossom was soon blighted. He died on the 8th of June, 1795.3

1 "Madame Elizabeth was condemned, with many other individuals of rank. When on the tumbril, she declared that Madame de Serilli, one of the victims, had disclosed to her that she was pregnant, and was thus the means of saving her life."-LACRETELLE, tom. xi., p. 424.

"The assassination of the Queen and of Madame Elizabeth excited perhaps still more astonishment and horror than the crime which had been perpetrated against the person of the King; for no other object could be assigned for these horrible enormities, than the very terror which they were fitted to inspire.”. DE STAEL, vol. ii., p. 125.

2 Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 233.

3 "Simon had had the cruelty to leave the poor child, absolutely alone. Unexampled barbarity! to leave an unhappy and sickly infant of eight years old, in a great room, locked and bolted in, with no other resource than a broken bell, which he never rang, so greatly did he dread the people whom its sound would have brought to him; he preferred wanting any thing and every thing to the sight of his persecutors. His bed had not been touched for six months, and he had not strength to make it himself; it was alive with bugs, and vermin still more disgusting. His linen and his person were covered with them. For more than a year he had had no change of shirt or stockings; every kind of filth was allowed to accumulate about him, and in his room; and during all that period, nothing of that kind had been removed. His window, which was locked as well as grated, was never opened; and the infectious smell of this horrid room was so dreadful, that no one could bear it for a moment. He passed his days without any kind of occupation. They did not even allow him light in the evening. This situation affected his mind as well as his body; and it is not surprising that he should have fallen into a frightful atrophy."DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME, p. 109.

After this last horrible crime, there was a relaxation in favour of the daughter, and now the sole child, of this unhappy house. The Princess Royal, whose qualities have since honoured even her birth and blood, experienced, from this period, a mitigated captivity. Finally, on the 19th December, 1795, this last remaining relic of the family of Louis was permitted to leave her prison and her country, in exchange for La Fayette and others, whom, on that condition, Austria delivered from captivity. She became afterwards the wife of her cousin the Duke d'Angoulême, eldest son of the reigning monarch of France, and obtained, by the manner in which she conducted herself at Bourdeaux in 1815, the highest praise for gallantry and spirit.

CHAPTER XIV.

Dumouriez-His displeasure at the Treatment of the Flemish Provinces by the Convention-His projects in consequence-Gains the ill-will of his Army-and is forced to fly to the Austrian Camp —Lices many years in retreat, and finally dies in England— Struggles betwixt the Girondists and Jacobins-Robespierre impeaches the Leaders of the Girondists—and is denounced by them -Decree of Accusation against Marat-Commission of Ï'welve -Marat acquitted-Terror of the Girondists-Jacobins prepare to attack the Palais Royal, but are repulsed-Repair to the Convention, who recall the Commission of Twelve-Louvet and other Girondist Leaders fly from Paris-Convention go forth in cession to expostulate with the People-Forced back to their Hall, and compelled to Decree the Accusation of Thirty of their Body -Girondists finally ruined—and their principal Leaders perish -Close of their History.

pro

WHILE the Republic was thus indulging the full tyranny of irresistible success over the remains of the royal family, it seemed about to sustain a severe shock from one of its own children, who had arisen to eminence by its paths. This was Dumouriez, whom we left victor at Jemappes, and conqueror, in consequence, of the Flemish provinces. These fair possessions, the Convention, without a moment's hesitation, annexed to the dominions of France; and proceeded to pour down upon them their tax-gatherers, commissaries, and every other denomination of spoilers, who not only robbed without ceremony the unfortunate inhabitants, but insulted their religion by pillaging and defacing their churches, set their laws and privileges at contempt, and tyrannized over them in the very manner, which had so recently induced the Flemings to offer resistance to their own hereditary princes of the House of Austria.

Dumouriez, naturally proud of his conquest, felt for those who had surrendered to his arms upon assurance of being well treated,