[12]Antoine Pierre Barnave, one of the French revolutionists, was deputy to the Third Estate in 1789, and President of the National Assembly in 1790. He was arrested for alleged treason in 1791, and was guillotined in 1793.
[13]Pétion, mentioned in this connection, another of the revolutionists, was President of the Constituent Assembly in 1790, and Mayor of Paris in 1791-92. He was proscribed in June, 1793, but escaped, and at last committed suicide near Bordeaux in 1794.
[14]The Temple was a fortified structure of the Knights Templars, built in 1128. After the order was abolished in 1312, it was used for various purposes. The chapel remained until 1650, and the square tower, where the royal family were imprisoned, was destroyed in 1810.
[15]The Princess de Lamballe was the daughter of the Prince de Carignan of the house of Savoy-Carignan, and an intimate friend of Marie Antoinette, and shared the latter’s imprisonment in the Temple. She married the Prince de Lamballe, a great-grandson of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. She was put to death in 1792, because she refused to take the oath against the monarchy. Carlyle, in his “French Revolution,” says of her murder: “The brave are not spared, nor the beautiful, nor the weak. Princess de Lamballe has lain down on bed. ‘Madame, you are to be removed to the Abbaye’ (the military prison at St. Germain-des-Prés). ‘I do not wish to remove; I am well enough here.’ There is a need-be for removing. She will arrange her dress a little, then. Rude voices answer: ‘You have not far to go!’” The sad story of her fate is told in the last outcry from the mob. Although innocent of any offence, unless sympathy with the royal family or friendship with Marie Antoinette were an offence, she was executed. She went calmly to the guillotine and bravely gave up her life.
[16]History relates that the King mounted the scaffold without hesitation and without fear, but when the executioners approached to bind him he resisted them, deeming it an affront to his dignity and a reflection upon his courage. The Abbé who had accompanied him, as a spiritual consoler, reminded him that the Saviour had submitted to be bound, whereupon Louis, who was of a very pious nature, at once consented, though still protesting against the indignity of the act. Before the fatal moment, he advanced to the edge of the scaffold and said to the people: “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—” The sentence was left unfinished, for at that instant the signal was given the executioner. The Abbé leaning towards the King said: “Son of Saint Louis, ascend to Heaven.” Undoubtedly the reason for the interruption of the King’s last words was the fear of popular sympathy, for notwithstanding the revolutionary frenzy he was personally liked by many.