views of Robespierre being communicated to the convention, in a memorial from Roland, he declared that every part of the charge was calumnious, and that no member would dare to accuse him to his face. A short and slender figure, with a pale countenance, fixed his indignant eyes on the sanguinary dictator, and exclaimed, "I dare accuse you." Robespierre, appalled by the boldness of this member, and the murmurs of the deputies, retired from the tribune; and, Danton having in vain endeavoured to prevent Louvet from being heard, this accuser traced the progress of the demagogue from his first appearance in the Jacobin club, detailed his arts for the establishment of his influence, imputed to his instigation the massacre of the prisoners, and reproached him with aiming at the proscription of the true friends of the republic. If Pethion, Guadet, and Vergniaud, had answered Louvet's repeated calls, and had boldly declared what they knew of the enormities of the pretended patriot, he and Danton, in all probability, would have been instantly arrested. But the assembly gratified Robespierre with a week's delay; and, in the mean time, he strengthened his interest by intrigue and by intimidation. On the day assigned for his defence, he filled the gallery with his partisans of both sexes. In an artful harangue, he vindicated his patriotism, calumniated his adversaries, ridiculed the idea of his endeavouring to make himself a dictator, and apologized for some acts of popular outrage, as the usual concomitants of great revolutions, but denied that he had any concern in the death of the prisoners. The timid Girondists, affecting to think that Robespierre, even if the charges should be relinquished, would be so disgraced as to lose his influence, suffered him to escape by passing to the order of the day; an instance of weakness which proved them to be unfit to contend with the Jacobin faction'.

Thus encouraged by the imbecility of their opponents, the Jacobins prepared to wreak their vengeance on the royal prisoner. When the enunciation of facts (or the indictment) had been read, Barrère, the president, said to the king, "Louis,

you are accused by the French nation of having comDec. 11. mitted a multitude of crimes for the purpose of re-establishing your tyranny by the destruction of liberty. Soon after the meeting of the states-general, you encroached on the sovereignty of the people by suspending the assemblies of their representatives; you presented two declarations subversive of

1 Quelques Notices

pour l'Histoire et le Récit de mes Périls, par J. B. Louvet.

all liberty; you ordered troops to march against the citizens of Paris, and did not withdraw your army before the transactions at the Bastille had announced that the people were victorious." "No existing laws," replied Louis, "prohibited me from acting as I did. I had no wish to injure my subjects, no intention of shedding their blood."-"You eluded for a long time," said the president, "the execution of the decrees for the abolition of personal servitude, of tithes, and of feudal usages and claims you long refused to agree to the declaration of the rights of man you augmented the number of your guards, and suffered them in their orgies to blaspheme the nation: you gave occasion for a new insurrection: you took, at the confederation, an oath which you did not observe; and you encouraged Mirabeau to project a counter-revolution."-" These points and incidents, if true," said the king, "were anterior to my acceptance of the constitution1." The flight from Paris being adduced as a weighty charge against Louis, he did not specifically vindicate himself from it, but merely referred to the answers which he had given on that subject to the constituent assembly. To a conspiracy on his part the effusion of blood in the Champ de Mars was imputed; and it was affirmed, that he had paid enormous sums for journals and pamphlets, to discredit the assignats, support the cause of the emigrants, and check the progress of liberty. These charges he disclaimed, as well as the imputation of having connived at counter-revolutionary disturbances at Nîmes and other places. When his silence with regard to the convention of Pilnitz was represented as criminal, he replied, that he had given notice of it as soon as it came to his knowledge, and that his ministers, by the constitution, were responsible for it. He was accused of having sent money for the use of the ci-devant gardes-du-corps, and also to M. de Bouillé and other enemies of the revolution. To the guards, he said, he had discontinued his remittances as soon as he was informed of their being embodied on the right bank of the Rhine; and of the latter part of the charge he had no consciousness or recollection. An alleged correspondence with his brothers, subsequent to the enactment of the constitution, he disavowed. The imputed neglect of the military and naval service he denied. A concurrence in the coalition of foreign powers against France, an encouragement of refractory priests and fanatics, and attempts to suborn many of the deputies, were asserted, not proved, against

1 Histoire du dernier Règne de la Monarchie Françoise, chap. 5.

him. His non-confirmation of various decrees he justified by his own sense of their impropriety or inutility, and by his allowed constitutional prerogative. On the subject of the defence of his palace, he mentioned it as his duty to take some measures of precaution, when it was threatened with an attack. He certainly was not answerable for the effects of a conflict which he earnestly wished to avoid. Of a great number of papers shown to him by order of the president, he declared that he had no knowledge and some which he had before seen, contained no proofs of his criminality.

Dec. 26.

Three persons of respectability were allowed to plead in behalf of the accused prince. M. De Seze entered fully into every part of the subject, and demonstrated the invalidity and injustice of the charges. Louis then rose, and said, with some emotion, "As you have thus been informed of the grounds of my vindication, it is unnecessary for me to re-state them. In addressing you, perhaps for the last time, I declare that my conscience does not reproach me with any crime, and that my advocates have not transgressed the bounds of truth. I have never been unwilling to submit my whole conduct to public examination but my feelings have been particularly wounded by finding, in the act of accusation, that I am charged with being eager or ready to shed the blood of my people, and that the misfortunes of the 10th of August are attributed to my aggression. The multiplied proofs of my regard for my people, and the whole course of my behaviour and conduct, would, I thought, have convinced every one, that I would have risked my own safety to spare their blood, and ought to have shielded me against such an imputation."

Unmoved by this affecting appeal, Duhem proposed that the convention should instantly do justice, and that the members should individually answer the question, whether Louis should, or should not, be punished with death. Lanjuinais, very properly, advised a reference to the primary assemblies. After a tumultuous debate, it was resolved that the discussion should be opened without delay, and continued in preference to ordinary business. Vergniaud and other eloquent members denied the competency of legislators to act as judges: but their arguments had not sufficient weight with the assembly. It was voted, that A.D. the national representatives should judge the important 1793. cause, determine the propriety or expediency of an appeal to the people, and fix the mode of punishment.

The first question was thus stated: Is Louis guilty of treason

Jan. 15.

against the nation, and of a conspiracy against the safety of the state? The names of the deputies being called over according to the order of the departments, some delivered to the secretaries their written opinions; others, mounting the tribune, orally stated their sentiments. Fauchet, a constitutional bishop, said, "As a citizen and legislator, I answer the question in the affirmative: but, as a judge, I am not competent to determine." Du Bois du Bais declared that Louis was guilty; but he did not consider the convention as authorized to decide upon his fate. Taveau said, "He has drawn our enemies upon us; they have ravaged our frontiers; fifty thousand Frenchmen have lost their lives; I therefore pronounce him guilty." Of his criminality Chambon had no doubt: Salicetti, the Corsican, declared against him, thinking that, as a citizen, he was bound so to determine; Giroust voted to the same purpose, as a legislator; Le Maréchal, from a regard for the public safety; and Pelet, as a member of a legislative and political body, gave a similar suffrage. Osselin thus commenced the declaration which he signed: Among the serious charges against Louis I have particularly noticed that which relates to the pay allowed by him to his guard, though it has been disbanded, and though almost all the individuals who composed it had not merely emigrated, but were employed at Coblentz or had enlisted in the hostile army." De la Haye said, "I read upon the walls of Paris these words, traced with the blood of our brethren,-Louis is guilty." Noel, though he had lost a son by the war, declared that " he could not act as a judge of one who might be considered as the principal author of that death which he lamented1." After these and other speeches, the unfortunate prince was stigmatized as guilty by the votes of six hundred and eighty-three members, while only thirtyseven of those who were present were inclined to think more favourably of his conduct.

66

The second question was, whether an appeal should be made to the people on the momentous subject. Dubois Crancé exclaimed, "Such an appeal is treason against the nation!" Baudin more properly remarked, that four years of experience in the primary assemblies compelled him to vote for a reference to the body of the nation. Rabaut de St. Etienne said, "I am convinced that the people did not intend to confer on their representatives the functions of accuser, judge, and juror; and as no insults or menaces shall ever deter me from doing my duty, I

Histoire du dernier Règne de la Monarchie Françoise, chap. 10.

boldly vote for the affirmative." Ysarn Valadi, with equal boldness, said, "I am neither the friend of kings nor the infamous tool of any of the ambitious incendiaries who surround us. On great occasions, the judicial power ought to revert to its source, in a regenerated community: let us now begin the practice." Barbaroux thus spoke: "The oath which I took in an electoral assembly to judge Louis Capet, does not exclude the sanction of the people. I therefore vote for that sanction, because it is time that the people of all the departments should exercise their aggregate sovereignty, and, by the manifestation of their supreme will, crush a faction in the midst of which I perceive Philip of Orleans, and which I denounce to the republic, coolly devoting myself to the poignards of its murderous members. At the same time, I declare that the tyrant is odious to me; that I strenuously co-operated for his dethronement; and that I will doom him to the severest punishment." Deperret voted for the appeal, out of respect for the people, and also because he saw a Cromwell behind the curtain'.

La Rivière said, "As a statement of reasons or motives would weaken a self-evident proposition, I announce my wish merely by saying aye to the question." Milhaud represented the sovereignty of nature as paramount to that of the people, who had no right to pardon tyrants. Even if a national declaration should authorize impunity to a royal delinquent, nature, he said, would reserve to every citizen the right of imitating the example of Brutus. The short speech of the ferocious Carrier was to this effect: "As I fear no one, and can arm myself against a future tyrant, whatever denomination he may assume, I say no." Bellegarde excited a laugh by saying, "With all possible force of affirmation, I maintain the negative." Bernard thought, that the crime and the criminal would be too much honoured, if the people should be required to meet for the purpose of judging Louis. "The best mode of doing homage to the sovereignty of the people," said Julien, "is to exercise it ourselves for the preservation of the republic." Vallée said, that the people could not conveniently try Louis in a judicial way, but might easily determine what steps ought to be taken after conviction. Pethion wished, for the sake of the public tranquillity, that the votes which should prevail in this question might be much more numerous than he apprehended they would prove to be. He added, that an appeal ought to be adopted. The words of Lanjuinais

1 Histoire du dernier Règne, chap. 11.