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perversion of his benevolence into a crime shocked the Monarch, and he shed tears; he soon regained his calmness, and his reply was a triumphant refutation:-"I knew no pleasure equal to the power of relieving those who were in want; there was nothing in that which indicated a plot." The examination being concluded, the King demanded a copy of the act of accusation; a communication of the papers on which it was founded; and that he might have counsel to manage his defence. The papers were submitted to him for a momentary inspection; he disavowed the greater part of them. The whole conduct of the King, on this occasion, was so dignified, and so calm, that it produced the deepest impression, even upon the dregs of the rabble, who were placed in the galleries to insult him. One of his enemies afterwards declared, that if Louis had remained ten minutes longer, the people would infallib y have shouted in his favour. The King retired, after the most painful exertion of seven hours. When he left the Chamber, the fainting Monarch exclaimed,- -"Give me a bit of bread, for I have tasted nothing all day." The Chamber at length determined, that the King should be allowed counsel.

On the return of Louis to the Temple, his miseries were increased by an entire separation from his family; but in his affliction, he was not entirely abandoned. An eminent pleader, though nearly eighty years of age, offered to defend the King; and other gentlemen who had been compelled to emigrate, applied for passports that they might perform the same duty at the risk of the r lives. Several of his former ministers offered to be responsible for all the acts committed during their administration, and others circulated through Europe a defence and justification of his conduct. Messrs. Malesherbes, Tro chet, and De Seze, were at length appointed his counsel. They did not shrink from their duty, however insulted and vilified during its performance. The 26th of December was ordered for a final hearing of the Monarch. On that day M. de Seze read the defence

which had been prepared, a defence which placed the King's innocence beyond a doubt. While his counsel was speaking, the King maintained the utmost tranquillity. De Seze having concluded, the King arose, and in a calm manner said, "Citizens, you have heard my defence; I now speak to you perhaps for the last time, and declare that my conscience reproaches me with nothing, and that my counsel have asserted nothing but the truth. I never was afraid of having my conduct publicly investigated, but I am most sensibly afflicted to find in the act of accusation, a charge that I desired to shed the blood of the people; and particularly, that I occasioned the misfortunes of the tenth of August. I confess that the numerous instances I have given on every occasion, of my love of the people, and the manner in which I have conducted myself, appeared to me fully sufficient to prove how little I feared exposing my own safety, in order to avoid bloodshed, and to have effectually prevented such an imputation."

After violent debates, and several delays, the Convention proceeded to vote upon the guilt of the King, and his punishment. The first question, "is Louis: guilty, or not?" was carried by a general affirmative. The second question, "whether the judgment should be pronounced by the people in primary assemblies," was negatived by a majority of one hundred and forty-one. Upon the third question of punishment, the votes were, for death with various restriction thirty-four; for perpetual imprisonment two; for confinement or banishment three hundred and nineteen. The number of votes for death absolutely, was three hundred and sixty-six. To the disgrace of human nature, amongst the number of those who voted for death, was the King's infamous relation, the Duke of Orleans. Brutalized as the French people were, this conduct excited the most universal indignation. In the King's mind it produced no other effect than a sense of the degraded state of his persecutor. "I do not know," said he, "what I have done to my cousin, to make him behave to me in the manner he

has, but he is to be pitied; he is still more unfortunate than I am. I certainly would not change conditions with him."

When the sentence had been pronounced, the King's counsel were admitted, and formally protested, in the name of their sovereign, against its illegality and cruelty. They passed to the order of the day, and at their next meeting, on the 17th of January, decreed that the sentence should be executed in 24 hours. When this was officially notified to the King, he still maintained his tranquillity, but demanded a delay of three days to prepare himself to appear in the presence of his God; to receive the visits of a minister of Christianity; and to communicate in private with his family. He also requested that the Convention would permit his afflicted Queen, his children, and his sister, to retire where they pleased. The delay was peremptorily refused; the other two minor requests were granted; the pledge for the future safety of Louis's unhappy family was evaded.

During the short time that the King was permitted to live, he showed that the most exemplary piety was the foundation of his other virtues. The Abbé Edgeworth was the clergyman selected by the King for the performance of the last duties, and no man could have performed this painful office with more Christian zeal and kindness. Agonizing, indeed, was the short interval between the final decree of the Convention and its execution. We cannot undertake to describe the last interview between the King and his family. Let us only imagine the degradations and miseries which that family had endured; cast down from the heights of grandeur and security, into the depths of wretchedness and terror; let us view the unhappy King, thinking less of his own impending fate than of the too probable destiny of those who were dear to him; let us behold his afflicted Queen, his innocent children, and his affectionate sister, forgetful of every thing but the dreadful certainty that the dearest and most venerated being on earth was quitting them for ever-and we may then understand what principle

alone could have supported them under these accumulated sufferings. In the offices of religion, Louis recovered his composure. His last hope was, that he might be permitted to receive the sacrament, and this his enemies did not deny him. After a calm sleep, at five in the morning he called up his attendant, and received the communion with the profoundest devotion. Even within an hour of his death, when the petty insults of those about him might have appeared to reach their natural close, he was still subjected to neglects and revilings. At ten o'clock he was conducted to the guillotine. Having thrown off his coat, he was going to ascend the scaffold, when they seized his hands to tie them behind his back. As he was unprepared for this insult, his first movement was to repel the attempt with indignation. But Edgeworth knowing resistance was vain, and would only expose him to greater indignities, said, "Sire, this new humiliation is another circumstance in which your Majesty's sufferings resemble those of our Saviour, who will soon be your reward." Instantly the King, with an air of dignified resignation, presented his hands. The executioners drawing the cords with the utmost violence, he mildly said, "There is no need to pull so tight.'

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While he ascended the scaffold, Edgeworth exclaimed aloud, "Louis, son of St. Louis, ascend to Heaven."

As soon as the King came upon the scaffold, advancing with a firm step to the part which faced the palace, he desired the drums to cease, and was obeyed. He then pronounced, loud enough to be heard in the garden of the Thuilleries, " Frenchmen, I die innocent of the crimes imputed to me. I forgive my enemies, I implore God, from the bottom of my heart, to pardon them, and not to take vengeance on the French nation for the blood about to be shed."

He was continuing, when the brutal Santerre pushed furiously towards the drummers, and forced them to beat without intermission. The executioners seized

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their victim, and placed him under the axe of the guillotine.

Edgeworth remained kneeling on the scaffold in a state of stupor, till roused by the cries of the populace, when he retired to the house of Malesherbes.

As soon as the act was done, the mob exclaimed, "Vive la republique!" One man caught up the bleeding head, and brandishing it with exultation, cried, Vive le nation!" Several persons dipped the points of pikes, handkerchiefs, &c. &c. in the blood. The King's corpse was thrown, without ceremony, into a hole in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdalen, which was filled with quick lime, and guarded till the body was supposed to be quite consumed, and then levelled, that every trace of the spot where the Monarch was deposited might be obliterated.

Thus fell Louis the Sixteenth, on January the 21st, 1793. His untimely end was honoured by a general mourning in all the countries of Europe.

K.

NAVAL VICTORIES.

NO. 1. LORD HOWE'S VICTORY.

There is nothing more salutary in prosperity, or more consoling under misfortune, than a practical conviction of God's superintending care of his creatures, or, in other words, the belief of a special Pro vidence. Every one who can think or feel, and who knows how to exercise himself in the review of his past life, must often be struck by the repeated proofs of divine interference in the regulation of his thoughts and conduct, which such a review brings to his mind. A thousand circumstances which seemed at first sight to be merely in the ordinary course of things, or to have arisen from the most trifling accidents, will be found to have worked out the most important consequences, affording the strongest confirmation of the truth of the poet's assertion,

"There's a Divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough hew them how we will.”

To busy ourselves, however, in tracing these proofs

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