"Gentlemen, I recommend to your care this gentleman. Let him not be insulted after my death. I entreat you to watch over him."
"Yes, yes," said one, contemptuously; "make your mind easy, we will take care of him. Let us alone."
Louis alighted. Two of the executioners came to the foot of the scaffold to take off his coat. The king waved them away, and himself took off his coat and cravat, and turned down the collar of his shirt, that his throat might be presented bare to the knife. They then came with cords to bind his hands behind his back.
"What do you wish to do?" said the king, indignantly.
"Bind you," they replied, as they seized his hands, and endeavored to fasten them with the cords.
"Bind me!" replied the king, in tones of deepest feeling. "No, no; I will never consent. Do your business, but you shall not bind me."
The executioners seized him rudely, and called for help. "Sire," said his Christian adviser, "suffer this outrage, as a last resemblance to that God who is about to be your reward."
"Assuredly," replied the king, "there needed nothing less than the example of God to make me submit to such an indignity." Then, holding out his hands to the executioners, he said, "Do as you will! I will drink the cup to the dregs."
With a firm tread he ascended the steep steps of the scaffold, looked for a moment upon the keen and polished edge of the axe, and then, turning to the vast throng, said, in a voice clear and untremulous,
"People, I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me! I pardon the authors of my death, and pray to God that the blood you are about to shed may not fall again on France."