few battalions of the National Guard, whose loyalty was undoubted. These ready means of defense were increased by a number of devoted followers, to whom free access to the château had been granted, and who had firmly resolved to make a rampart of their bodies in defense of the royal family.

Together with the Prince de St.-Maurice, I resolved upon joining this faithful band. On the morning of the 9th of August we wrote to M. de Champcenetz to ask him for cards of admission. They had not reached us by evening, and during the night between the 9th and 10th of August, we made several vain attempts to get into the château, which was then being threatened. If I make a note of this fact, it is not because of its actual importance, but because of a couple of circumstances pertaining thereto, one of which was of a fatal nature, while the other was fortunate to a singular degree. The card which I had asked for on the 9th of August reached me by the local post two days later, when all was over. How was it that it should have been so long delayed in transmission, without being intercepted? How was it, then, that it did not bring about my arrest? It was a piece of good luck which I have never been able to explain. Fate was not equally kind to the Prince de St.-Maurice. His readiness to serve the king had had no other result than mine, with the exception that his card did not reach him, and that he never discovered any trace of it. He lost his head on the scaffold, under the accusation of having been one of the defenders of the Tuileries.

Both of us witnessed the whole scene. The king passed us as he crossed the garden of the Tuileries, yielding to the advice of going to the Assembly, in order to place himself under its protection. As we left, cannon were being fired across the garden. It was a short-lived fight, but its effect was to destroy the most powerful and ancient dynasty reigning in Europe.

151. Trial and Execution of Louis XVI 1

After a short trial before the Convention Louis XVI was condemned

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to death for treason to the nation" (January 8, 1793).

Must I speak of the agonizing days which this trial made me go through? Yes, indeed; for if ever this manuscript is published, if even it is merely preserved in my family, I do not wish it to remain unknown that my father and I contributed, in so far as lay in our power, to the defense of our unfortunate king. My father... was in a position to render the king every assistance that lay within his power. He took part in their private deliberations, and during the course of the trial he occupied a seat in the tribune set aside for the king's defenders, taking notes with them, and aiding them in their task.

During that time I never left the public tribunes and the hallways of the House, going about in quest of information, gathering the slightest straws which showed how the wind blew, and bringing them all to my father, who would communicate them to the other gentlemen. . . . For a short while people let themselves be lulled by illusions. The streets (who would believe it?) reëchoed songs expressing pity for the fate of the king. . . . But popular sentiment was not powerful enough to have any influence within the precincts of the hall of the Convention. There it was merely the pitiless taking of votes.

In the tribune of the king's defenders the result was being reckoned up, according to what was thought to be the opinions of each member. The result of these calculations indicated an acquittal. The noble soul of M. de Malesherbes, especially, could not abandon the hope of which he so needed the support. I can still see him, the day the vote was taken, checking off the votes on his note-book as they were recorded, and passing from fear to hope, then from hope to despair. The words he spoke at the bar of the House, when the vote was finally recorded, sufficiently showed how up to the last moment it had been impossible for him to realize the perpetration of so great a deed of iniquity. . . .

1 Pasquier, Mémoires, vol. i, pp. 91-94.

The execution of the king occurred thirteen days later in the great public square of Paris, the Place de la Concorde.

It remains for me to say that I saw the tragedy which was enacted on the 21st of January. I lived in a house which faced on the boulevard, at the corner of the church of the Madeleine. My father and I sat opposite each other all morning, buried in our grief and unable to utter a word. We knew that the fatal procession was wending its way by the boulevards.

Suddenly a loud clamor made itself heard. I rushed out under the idea that perhaps an attempt was being made to rescue the king. How could I do otherwise than cherish such a hope to the very last? On reaching the goal I discovered that what I had heard was merely the howling of the raving madmen who surrounded the vehicle. I found myself sucked in by the crowd which followed it, and was dragged away by it, and, so to speak, carried and set down at the scaffold's side. So it was that I endured the horror of this awful spectacle.

Hardly had the crime been consummated when a cry of “Long live the nation!” arose from the foot of the scaffold, and, repeated from man to man, was taken up by the whole of the vast concourse of people. This cry was followed by the deepest and most gloomy silence. Shame, horror, and terror were now hovering over the entire locality. I crossed it once more, swept back by the flood which had brought me thither. Each one walked along slowly, hardly daring to look at another. The rest of the day was spent in a state of profound stupor, which spread a pall over the whole city. Twice was I compelled to leave the house, and on both occasions did I find the streets deserted and silent. The assassins had lost their accustomed spirit of bravado. Public grief made itself felt, and they were silent in the face of it.

152. The Reign of Terror 1

In the month of March, 1703, the revolutionary tribunals were organized, together with the committees of General Police 1 Pasquier. Mémoires, vol. i, pp. 95-96, 116-120.

and of Public Safety. The émigrés, the aristocrats, and the enemies of the Revolution were all outlawed, and a revolutionary army was especially intrusted with hunting them down.

The law of the suspects spread out a huge net from which no one might hope to escape. Fresh prisons were opened in all directions, and they could scarcely hold the number of unfortunate people stowed away in them. The Convention let loose all over the country deputies chosen among the most ferocious and vicious of the Mountain's membership. France was handed over defenseless to these representatives of the people, clothed with the most unlimited powers, and disposing, at their own free will, of the liberty and life of any individual whom it pleased them to call a counter-revolutionist.

In every department, in every town, they found docile executors of all their acts of savagery a score or so of wretches, all or almost all sprung from the dregs of the population, hardly able to write their names, but invested with the title of members of the Revolutionary Committee. For the purpose of having their orders carried out, they called into requisition the help of the inert mass of citizens, which knows only how to sigh and obey, and thus, during a term of eighteen months, the very man who was to be arrested the following day took part in the arrests of the foregoing one. He who was to perish during the next week often escorted to the scaffold, while shouldering a pike, the victims of the current week. Officers, soldiers, generals, officials, rich and poor, all stood alike in fear of these modern proconsuls, and all fled who had the means of flight at their disposal. But it was very hard to escape their vigilance when one belonged to the proscribed class.

Pasquier, whose father had been previously guillotined, did not escape suspicion during the Terror. In 1794 he was arrested, together with his wife, and taken to the prison of St.-Lazare. A younger brother and two brothers-in-law were already confined there.

In every one of the large prisons were a certain number of scoundrels, apparently detained as prisoners like the others, but who were really there to select and draw up a list of the

victims. Several of them had become known as spies, and, incredible as it may seem, their lives were spared by those in the midst of whom they fulfilled their shameful duty. On the contrary, the prisoners treated them gently and paid them court. I had scarcely passed the first wicket, and was following the jailer who was taking me to the room I was to occupy, when I found myself face to face with M. de Montrou, already notorious through his scandalous intrigues, and whose adventures have since created such a stir in society. He came close to me, and without pretending to notice me, whispered into my ear the following salutary bit of advice: "While here, do not speak a word to anybody whom you do not know thoroughly."

On reaching with Mme. Pasquier the lodging destined for our use, and which had been vacated by the two victims of the previous day, we were soon surrounded by our relations, and by a few friends who hastened to offer us all the assistance they could. We were enjoying, as far as one can enjoy anything when in a similar position, these proofs of kindly interest and friendship, when one of my brothers-in-law, who was looking out of the window, exclaimed, "Ah, here is Pépin Dégrouettes about to take his daily walk. We must go and show ourselves. Come along with us." "Why so?" I queried, whereupon I was told that he was the principal one among the rascals whose abominable rôle I have described. . . . Every afternoon he would thus take a turn in the yard, and it was for him the occasion of passing in review, so to speak, the flock which he was gradually sending to the slaughter-house. Woe unto him who seemed to hide, or to avoid his look! Such a one was immediately noted, and he could be sure that his turn would come next. Many a gallant man's death became a settled thing, because he was a few minutes late in coming down into the yard and passing under the fellow's notice. The surrendering oneself to his discretion was apparently a way of imploring mercy at his hands. We went through the formality, and it constituted a scene which I never can forget. I can still see him, a man