bind him: he spurns, resists; Abbe Edgeworth
has to remind him how the Saviour, in whom men trust, submitted to be
bound. His hands are tied, his head bare; the fatal moment is come. He
advances to the edge of the Scaffold, 'his face very red,' and says:
"Frenchmen, I die innocent: it is from the Scaffold and near appearing
before God that I tell you so. I pardon my enemies; I desire that
France--" A General on horseback, Santerre or another, prances out with
uplifted hand: "Tambours!" The drums drown the voice. "Executioners do
your duty!" The Executioners, desperate lest themselves be murdered (for
Santerre and his Armed Ranks will strike, if they do not), seize the
hapless Louis: six of them desperate, him singly desperate, struggling
there; and bind him to their plank. Abbe Edgeworth, stooping, bespeaks
him: "Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven." The Axe clanks down; a
King's Life is shorn away. It is Monday the 21st of January 1793. He was
aged Thirty-eight years four months and twenty-eight days. (Newspapers,
Municipal Records, &c. &c. in Hist. Parl. xxiii. 298-349) Deux Amis
(ix. 369-373), Mercier (Nouveau Paris, iii. 3-8.)

Executioner Samson shews the Head: fierce shout of Vive la Republique
rises, and swells; caps raised on bayonets, hats waving: students of
the College of Four Nations take it up, on the far Quais; fling it over
Paris. Orleans drives off in his cabriolet; the Townhall Councillors
rub their hands, saying, "It is done, It is done." There is dipping of
handkerchiefs, of pike-points in the blood. Headsman Samson, though he
afterwards denied it, (His Letter in the Newspapers, Hist. Parl. ubi
supra.) sells locks of the hair: fractions of the puce coat are long
after worn in rings. (Forster's Briefwechsel, i. 473.)--And so, in some
half-hour it is done; and the multitude has all departed. Pastrycooks,
coffee-sellers, milkmen sing out their trivial quotidian cries: the
world wags on, as if this were a common day. In the coffeehouses that
evening, says Prudhomme, Patriot shook hands with Patriot in a more
cordial manner than usual. Not till some days after, according to
Mercier, did public men see what a grave thing it was.

A grave thing it indisputably is; and will have consequences. On the
morrow morning, Roland, so long steeped to the lips in disgust and
chagrin, sends in his demission. His accounts lie all ready, correct
in black-on-white to the uttermost farthing: these he wants but to have
aud