This was as the words of Cæsar, falling, “And you, too, Brutus?”
Here a posse of authorities arrived, to announce his sentence to the King, with all the pomp and display of circumstance.
The King stood up, his head erect, his eyes upon his judges, and he listened to his fate—death within twenty-four hours—with the intrepidity of a brave man. One look towards heaven, as he heard the words which curtailed his life, and then he was once more facing his enemies.
The communication read, the King advanced, and, taking it, put the document very calmly into a little portfolio.
“Sir,” he said to the officiating minister of the Convention and speaking half royally, half supplicatingly, “I request you to deliver this letter to the Convention.”
The secretary hesitated to take the paper.
“I will read it to you,” said the King; and he commenced. “I demand from the Convention three days, in which to prepare my soul for God, I require freely to see the priest, whom I am about to name, and that he be protected while extending to me the charity of his holy office. I demand to be freed from the shameful watchfulness which has surrounded me now for many days past. I ask, during these my last moments, leave to see my family when I will, and without witnesses. And I pray most earnestly that the Convention will at once take into consideration the fate of my family; and that they may, after my death, at once be allowed to go whither they will. I recommend to the love of the nation all persons who in any way have claims on me. These are, many of them, old men, and women, and children. Many of them must be in want.”
These words show that even at this point the King had not the least thought of the popular vengeance going beyond himself, and falling on the Queen. He cannot comprehend that they will kill women and children—his faith in loyalty and manhood is too strong to admit of any such suspicion in his breast. The faults of Louis, those rather of apathy than action, were many; but he was a brave and loyal gentleman, who certainly could not comprehend cowardice.
The name of the minister for whose holy office the King asked, and which was written upon the separate piece of paper, was Abbé Edgeworth de Fermont—a gentleman descended from a good Irish family.