"Shall the decision of the National Convention be submitted to ratification by the people?"
The members who voted for ratification by the people were two hundred and eighty-one; those against ratification, four hundred and twenty-three.
The president announced the result of the vote:
"The National Convention declares the judgment rendered on Louis Capet shall not be sent for ratification to the people."
JANUARY 17, 1793.—To-day and yesterday the sessions of the Convention were permanent, due to the gravity of the situation. The debate turned upon the third question:
"What shall be the penalty imposed on Louis XVI?"
I was present at the sessions wherein the elected Representatives of the people decided the fate of the Frankish monarchy, imposed on Gaul for fourteen centuries. It was not alone the man, the King, that the Convention decapitated—it was the most ancient monarchy in Europe. It was not only the head of Capet that the Republic wished defiantly to cast at the feet of allied Europe; it was the crown of the last of the Kings.
It was eight in the evening. In response to their names as the roll was called the members of the Convention mounted the tribunal one by one, and in the midst of a solemn silence cast their vote.
This evening, Thursday, at eight o'clock, while throughout the spacious hall one might have heard a pin drop, Vergniaud announced the result:
"The Assembly consists of seven hundred and forty-nine members; 15 are absent on committees, 7 because of illness, 1 without cause, censured; and 5 excused; number remaining, seven hundred and twenty-one.