is, and having appointed a committee to that end, heard the {164}
report of its committee on the 3rd of November. From this it appeared
that there were numerous charges that could be preferred against Louis;
but what was the tribunal before which such charges could be tried?
There could be but one answer. Only the people of France could judge
Louis, and the Convention stood for the people. Lengthy debates
followed on these questions, and the speech of Robespierre, a speech in
which he stood nearly alone in taking a logical view of the situation,
was perhaps its most remarkable product. Robespierre said: "The
assembly has been drawn off on side issues. There is no question here
of a legal action. Louis is not an accused person; you are not
judges,--you are only representatives of the nation. It is not for you
to render judgment, but to take a measure of national security. . . .
Louis was king, and the republic has come into existence; the wonderful
question you are debating is resolved by these words. Louis was
dethroned for his crimes; Louis denounced the people of France as
rebels; he called to chastise them the armies of his brother tyrants to
his help; victory and the people have decided that he alone is the
rebel; Louis therefore cannot be judged because he has been judged. He
{165} stands condemned, or if not, then the republic stands not
acquitted. . . . For if Louis can be the subject of an action, Louis
may be pronounced guiltless. . . . A people does not judge after the
manner of a judicial body; it does not render sentence, it launches the
thunderbolt."

On the same day, the 3rd of December, without accepting Robespierre's
point of view, the Convention voted that the King should be brought to
trial. The Gironde, feeling the current now drawing them fast to a
catastrophe, attempted, in feeble fashion, to change its direction,
urging that an appeal should be made to the country. This failed, and
a week later Louis was brought before the assembly.

The royal family had been kept in very strict confinement at the
Temple. The Commune officials in whose charge they were placed were
for the most part men of the lower classes, brutal, arrogant,
suspicious, and somewhat oppressed with responsibility and the fear of
possible attempts at a rescue. In these conditions the royal family
suffered severely, and, under suffering, rapidly began to regain some
of the ground they had lost while fortune smiled. Ag