With the fall of the King’s head, the utter Reign of Terror was to commence.
Garat, while in his carriage, conveying the Abbot to the Temple, broke out into admiration of the King.
“Great heavens!” he cried, “with what a terrible mission am I not charged! What a man is this Louis XVI—what resignation he shows, and what courage! No mere human strength could give such force; in this there is something of the supernatural.”
The priest remained silent; he hesitated to betray himself.
Not a word more was said up to the moment when the carriage stopped at the Temple.
The Abbé remarked that the first room through which they passed was filled with armed men. Thence they passed to a larger apartment, which the Abbé saw had been a chapel; but the signs of religion had been swept away—the altar was broken in pieces.
Here the Abbé was searched for weapons by a number of rough men, while the minister passed up into the King’s cell.
When the Abbé followed him, the old man fell at the King’s feet, and burst into tears, with which the King mingled his own.
“Pardon me,” said Louis, raising him, “this is indeed weakness! I have so long lived amongst my enemies, that I have grown to think little of their hatred, and my heart has grown hard and callous. But the sight of an old friend restores to me that tenderness which I thought was long since dead, and I weep in spite of my will to be unmoved.”