Ah, posterity cannot forgive those acts! Long must the question remain unsettled whether or not Louis XVI was rightfully put to death. Possibly he but paid the debt his ancestors had incurred. Millions had died of starvation. Taxes annihilated industry through generations previous to the uprising of the people. Even salt was weighted with a tax which caused it to be sold at an enormous rate—thirty pence a pound. Finally, Louis may have been guilty, as a man who was false to his oaths to keep the land of France free of enemies, of calling foreign help to France. It must be felt that when his throne was sinking from beneath him, other kings, in the interests of thrones, being desirous of maintaining Louis upon his, would willingly offer that foreign aid which it is felt Louis had been more than humanly self-denying in refusing. He fell a sacrifice to the errors of the two Louises who had preceded him on the throne—a blood compensation for the waste, luxury, and sensuality of half a dozen generations of French nobles.
The measure of the people’s misery being full, they rose, and rose successfully. Their mistake—one which ultimately suffocated all the good it was intended they should effect—took the shape of success, intoxicating itself with victory.
Give a lesson to kings not to exceed their duty—yes. All France knew that the English Revolution, which sent Charles I to the block, had resulted in a social condition in England which offered an example for France to follow.
But having once passed upon a man the dignity of approaching death; having thrown round him the darkness of the coming tomb—to crush his heart—to humiliate him—to embitter his last moments—to play with his life as a cat with a poor, palpitating mouse—to try to resuscitate the desire to live—to seek to change the calmness of resignation back into the whirlpool of despair—these are not the acts of men, but demons.
Yet let not these acts be set down to the people. In times of trouble, all the scum boils to the surface, and it is the surface we see, not the clarified water below it. Few, very few men completed the murders of September; seven-eighths of all France knew nothing about these wholesale murders until they were achieved.
But the miserable attempt to torture the King’s last hour upon earth failed utterly—he was beyond attack. His soul had already passed away.
At nine o’clock there was a tumultuous noise upon the staircase, and now there was a summons at the door. It was thrown open.
As far as the King’s eyes could stretch were armed men—all gazing towards Louis.
Santerre appeared, attended by twelve municipals, and ten gendarmes, all of whom fell into two lines in the apartment.
The King turned to the little turret door, and with his hand upon it, looked towards Santerre.