EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI
MURDER OF MARAT: CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE
a.d. 1793
THOMAS CARLYLE
In the early days of the French Revolution many moderates who favored reform of the monarchy, but not its abolition, were wholly alienated by the condemnation and execution of Louis XVI, after what has been regarded as a mock trial by the National Convention. It was a still graver effect of this tragedy that it impelled the leading European powers to join in the great coalition against France contemplated in the Convention of Pillnitz (August, 1791).
Scarcely less was the influence upon the internal affairs of France from the murder of Marat by Charlotte Corday.
Jean Paul Marat, sometimes called, from the name of a paper which he published, the "Friend of the People," was one of the most ultra-revolutionary of the Jacobin leaders in the National Convention. By his murder the "Red Republicans"—the extreme radical party in the Convention, called the "Mountain" because they occupied the higher seats in the hall—were confirmed in their determination to destroy their opponents, the moderate republicans, called Girondists or Girondins. Many of the Girondist leaders, among them some of the most distinguished men in France, were soon sent to the guillotine, and the Reign of Terror was fully inaugurated. Carlyle calls Marat "atrocious," and so most writers regard him, but there are not wanting some to vindicate his character and purposes.
These tragic scenes, and the opening of the civil war which followed, known as the War of La Vendée, are depicted by Carlyle in that manner, all his own, which invests his history of the French Revolution at once with the element of realism and an air of romance.
Louis XVI was first deposed by the National Convention, and then brought to trial for conspiring with foreign enemies of France, for aiming to subvert French liberties, and for being the cause of the massacre of the Swiss Guards who defended the Tuileries (August 10, 1792) against a mob seeking the King's life. Louis was found "guilty," and, after a long wrangle in the Convention over the question of punishment, a small majority was given (January 20, 1793) for the decree of death. It was voted that there should be no delay of the execution.