The Convention, violent as were its members, reverenced this devotion of friendship, and honest Malsherbes was appointed to the task of defending the fallen King.
“Malsherbes,” said a friend to him, as he was leaving the Convention, “you are the friend of Louis XVI; how can you bring him papers in which he will read the expressions of the wrath of the people against him?”
“The King is not like other men,” returned M. de Malsherbes. “He possesses a great mind, and such faith as raises him above all things.”
“You are an honest man,” replied the friend. “But if you were not, what is to prevent you from bringing him poison, as a weapon, or advising him to commit suicide?”
Malsherbes hesitated for a moment, and then he replied, “If the King were of the religion of the philosophers—were he a Cato or a Brutus—he might kill himself. But he is pious—he is a Christian—he knows that religion forbids him to lay violent hands upon himself, and he will not commit suicide.”
Malsherbes went daily after this to see the King, to commune with him upon the defence which was to be set up.
But of what avail was any defence? The question was not whether or not the King was guilty, but whether or not his death would be of advantage to the establishment of the republic.
During these final days of his life, the King was entirely deprived of the consolation of seeing his family. He was now kept completely isolated. However, by the mercy of Cléry, his servant, on the one hand, and that of Turgy, the Queen’s attendant, on the other, the desolate couple communicated. A few words were written on a morsel of thin paper, which, being folded, a needle was run through it, and it was in this condition concealed in a hank of sewing-thread, which was put in the Queen’s work-box by Turgy, who placed the thread, and its answering line, in Cléry’s way, who conveyed it to a place where the King would look for it.
Louis XVI never had any doubt that he would be executed. On the other hand, he does not appear, up to the time of his trial, to have assumed for one moment that the Queen would suffer.