In this final moment all the reserve and imperiousness of a prince returned to Louis XVI.
“You are come for me,” he said. “Await me—and for a mere moment.”
He paused, closed the door, and knelt at the minister’s feet.
“It is finished,” he said. “Bless me, and let me go.”
A moment, and he rose, came out, placed himself smilingly between the double row of armed men. In his hand was a paper. It was his will. Addressing himself to the man who appeared to be the chief of the squad, he said, “I pray you to give this letter to the Queen.”
The Republicans started, and the act reminded the King of the error he had committed.
“To my wife,” he said, correcting himself, to please the Republican ears.
“It’s no affair of mine,” replied the man addressed, and in savage tones. “I’m not here to carry messages to your wife, but to take you to the scaffold.”
This unhappy creature, one Jacques Roux, had actually been a priest, who had thrown off the cassock and joined the revolutionary army.