c; the next, to issue new assignats. The two preceding
assemblies had authorized the fabrication of twenty-seven hundred
millions of francs, and the Convention added millions more on the
security of the national domains. On the 7th of November, the trial of
the king was decreed; and, on the 11th of December, his examination
commenced. On his appearance at the bar of the Convention, the
president, Barrere, said, "Louis, the French nation accuses you; you
are about to hear the charges that are to be preferred. Louis, be
seated."

The charges consisted of the whole crimes of the revolution, to which
he replied with dignity, simplicity, and directness. He was defended,
in the mock trial, by Deseze, Tronchet, and Malesherbes; but his blood
was demanded, and the assembly unanimously pronounced the condemnation
of their king. That seven hundred men, with all the natural
differences of opinion, could be found to do this, shows the excess of
revolutionary madness. On the 20th of January, Santerre appeared in
the royal prison, and read the sentence of death; and only three days
were allowed the king to prepare for the last hour of anguish. On the
24th of January, he mounted the scaffold erected between the garden of
the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees, and the fatal axe separated his
head from his body. His remains were buried in the ancient cemetery of
the Madeleine, over which Napoleon commenced, after the battle of
Jena, a splendid temple of glory, but which was not finished until the
restoration of the Bourbons, who converted it into the beautiful
church which bears the name of the ancient cemetery. The spot where
Louis XVI. offered up his life, in expiation of the crimes of his
ancestors, is now marked by the colossal obelisk of red granite, which
the French government, in 1831, brought from Egypt, a monument which
has witnessed the march of Cambyses, and may survive the glory of the
French nation itself.

[Sidenote: General War.]

The martyrdom of Louis XVI. was the signal for a general war. All the
powers of Europe united to suppress the power and the principles of
the French revolutionists. The Convention, after declaring war against
England, Holland, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, the Two Sicilies,
the Roman States, Sardinia, and Piedmont,--all of which had combined
together,--ordered a levy of three hundred thousand men, instituted a
military tribunal, and imposed a forced loan on the rich of one
thousand milli