1793. Memoirs, words "Death! and never did word weigh so heavily VIII. on my heart.”1 But the fate of Louis affords a signal proof that what is unjust never is expedient, and that its Carnot's ultimate tendency is to injure the cause for which it was 97. committed. The first effect may frequently answer the expectations of its perpetrators; the last invariably disappoints them. For a few years the death of the King, by implicating so large a body of men in the support of the republic, was favourable to democracy: it ultimately led to the restoration of the monarchy. With what eagerness do the royalist historians now recount the scenes in the Temple! what would the republican writers give to be able to tear the record of them from the French annals! It must always be remembered that the actions of public men will be subjects of thought at a future period when interest is stifled, and passion is silent—when fear has ceased to agitate, and discord is at rest; but when conscience has resumed its sway over the human heart. Nothing but what is just, therefore, can finally be expedient, because nothing else can secure the permanent concurrence of mankind. 102. mous vote of of the Con But most of all, the unanimous vote of the Convention upon the guilt of Louis is the fit subject of meditation. The unaniThat among seven hundred men great difference of guilty, conopinion must have existed on the subject is quite certain, trary to the and is abundantly proved by the division which followed, the majority and the narrow majority by which his death was ulti-vention. mately voted. Yet even the friends of Louis were compelled to commence their efforts for his salvation by voting him guilty. The real grounds of his vindication, those on which the opinion of posterity will be founded, were by common consent abandoned. Upon a point on which history has unanimously decided one way, the Convention unanimously decided another. This result could hardly have taken place in an ordinary court of justice, composed of a few individuals whose situation was permanent, whose responsibility was fixed, whose CHAP. duties were restricted to the consideration of evidence. VIII. It was the combination of political considerations which 1793. proved fatal to Louis: terror at a relapse into the ancient bondage to the throne; fears for the just punishment of their innumerable crimes; dread of the revolutionary axe, already suspended over the country. Such is the general effect of blending the legislative and the judicial functions; of intrusting the life of a man to a 1 Toul. ii. popular assembly, in which numbers diminish the sense Mig. i. 237. of responsibility, without increasing the power of thought; and the contagion of a multitude adds to the force of passion, without diminishing the influence of fear.1 226, 233. Lac x. 220, 240. 103. the action majority. But this is not all. This extraordinary vote is a signal It illustrates proof of the effects of democratic institutions, and of the of a despotic utter impossibility of free discussion existing, or public justice being done, in a country in which the whole weight is thrown into the popular scale. It is well known that in America the press, when united, is omnipotent, and can at any time drive the most innocent person into exile; and that the judgments of the courts of law, though unexceptionable between man and man, are often notoriously unjust on any popular question, from the absence of any counterpoise to the power of the people. The same truth was experienced, in the most cruel manner, on the trial of Louis. That those who were inclined to save him in the Convention were men of the greatest talents, is evident from their speeches; that they were possessed of the noblest courage, was afterwards proved by their deaths. Yet these intrepid men were obliged, for his sake, to commence the struggle by voting him guilty. To have done otherwise, would have been to have delivered him unsupported into the hands of his enemies; to have totally destroyed their influence with the people; to have ruined themselves without saving him. So true is it, that the extreme of democracy is as fatal to freedom as unmitigated despotism; that truth is as seldom heard in the assemblies of the multitude as in the halls of VIII. 1793. princes; and that, without a due equipoise between the CHAP. conflicting ranks of society, the balance may be cast as far the one way as the other, and the axe of the populace become as subversive of justice as the bowstring of the Sultaun. 104. on the death But truth is great, and will prevail. The reign of injustice is not eternal; no special interposition of Provi- Reflections dence is required to arrest it; no avenging angel need of Louis. descend to terminate its wrathful course. It destroys itself by its own violence: the counteracting force arises from its own iniquity; the avenging angel is found in the human heart. In vain the malice of his enemies subjected Louis to every indignity; in vain the executioners bound his arms, and the revolutionary drums stifled his voice; in vain the edge of the guillotine destroyed his body, and his remains were consigned to unhallowed ground. His spirit has triumphed over the wickedness of his oppressors. From his death has begun a reaction in favour of order and religion throughout the globe. His sufferings have done more for the cause of monarchy than all the vices of his predecessors had undone. The corruptions had become such, that they could be expiated, as has been finely said, only "by the blood of the just ascending to heaven by the steps of the scaffold."* 105. donable It is by the last emotions that the great impression on mankind is made. In this view it was eminently favour- Its unparable to the interests of society that the crisis of the atrocity. French monarchy arrived in the reign of Louis. It fell not during the days of its splendour or its wickedness; under the haughtiness of Louis XIV. or the infamy of du Barri. It perished in the person of a spotless monarch, who, most of all his subjects, loved the people ; whose life had literally been spent in doing good; whose failings, equally with his virtues, should have protected him from popular violence. Had he possessed more * DE TOCQUEVILLE, Histoire de Louis XV., ii. 533. VIII. 1793. CHAP. daring, he would have been less unfortunate; had he strenuously supported the cause of royalty, he would not have suffered from the fury of the populace; had he been more prodigal of the blood of others, he would in all probability have saved his own. 106. And ulti mate bene But such warlike or ambi certainty have been relied tious qualities could not with currence. Nor has the martyrdom of Louis been lost to the immediate interests of the cause for which he suffered. His ficial effects. resignation in adversity, charity in suffering, heroism in death, will never be forgotten. The terrors of the republican reign, the glories of the imperial throne, have passed away; but the spotless termination of the monarchy has left an impression on mankind which will never be effaced. In the darkest night of the moral world, a flame has appeared in the tower of the Temple, at first feeble and struggling for existence, but which now burns with a steady ray, and has thrown a sainted light over the fall of the French monarchy. The days, indeed, of superstition are past: multitudes of pilgrims will not throng to his tomb, and stone will not be worn by the knees of his worshippers; but the days of admiration for departed |