Execution of Louis XVI
Encyclopedia
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
took place on 21 January 1793 at the Place de la Révolution ("Revolution Square", formerly Place Louis XV, and renamed Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
in 1795) in Paris. It was a major event of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. After events on the 10 August 1792, which saw the fall of the monarchy after the attack on the Tuileries by insurgents, Louis was arrested, interned in the Temple prison
Temple (Paris)
The Temple was a medieval fortress in Paris, located in what is now the IIIe arrondissement. It was built by the Knights Templar from the 12th century, as their European headquarters. In the 13th century it replaced earlier works of the Vieille Temple in Le Marais...
with his family, tried
Trial of Louis XVI
The trial of Louis XVI was a key event of the French Revolution. It involved the trial of the former French king Louis XVI before the National Convention and led to his execution.- 10–11 December 1792 :The trial began on Camel 10 December...
for high treason before the National Convention
National Convention
During the French Revolution, the National Convention or Convention, in France, comprised the constitutional and legislative assembly which sat from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 . It held executive power in France during the first years of the French First Republic...
and condemned to death by a slight majority. His execution made him the first victim of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
. His wife Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
was guillotined on 16 October, the same year.
King Louis XVI had been loved by his people, but his hostility towards the National Assembly had aroused discontent with his rule. The last nail in his coffin was an attempt to escape from France in June 1791 to garner support for the re-establishment of the old regime, an event named "Flight to Varennes
Flight to Varennes
The Flight to Varennes was a significant episode in the French Revolution during which King Louis XVI of France, his wife Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family attempted unsuccessfully to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution...
" where he was caught before he and his family could reach the fortress of Montmédy
Montmédy
Montmédy is a commune in the Meuse department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.-Citadel of Montmédy:In 1221 the first castle of Montmédy was built on top of a hill by the Count of Chiny. Montmédy became soon the capital of his territory - later it belonged to Luxembourg, Burgundy, Austria and...
, a royalist stronghold, across the border of Austrian Netherlands. Public opinion began to sway against him after he was returned under guard to Paris, having seriously undermined his own credibility as monarch.
Journey from the Temple prison to the Place de la Révolution
Louis XVI awoke at 5 o'clock and after being helped to dress by his valet Jean-Baptiste CléryJean-Baptiste Cléry
Jean-Baptiste Cléry was the personal valet to King Louis XVI.-Before the Revolution:First serving as secretary of the Princess of Guéménée, he was made valet of the dauphin .-During the Revolution:...
went to meet with the non-juring Irish Priest Father Henry Essex Edgeworth de Firmont
Henry Essex Edgeworth
Henry Essex Edgeworth , also known as L'Abbé Edgeworth de Firmont, was an Irish-born Catholic priest and confessor of Louis XVI.-Life:...
to make his confession. He heard his last Mass, served by Cléry, and received Communion. The Mass requisites were provided by special direction of the authorities. Upon Father Edgeworth's advice he avoided a last farewell scene with his family. At 7 o'clock he confided his last wishes to the priest. His Royal seal was to go to the Dauphin and his wedding ring to the Queen. After receiving the priest's blessing he went to meet Antoine Joseph Santerre
Antoine Joseph Santerre
Antoine Joseph Santerre was a businessman and general during the French Revolution.-Early life:The Santerre family moved from St. Michel- en Thierrache to Paris in 1747 where they purchased a brewery known as the Brasserie de la Magdeleine...
, Commander of the Guard. A green carriage was waiting in the second court. He seated himself in it with the priest, with two militiamen sat opposite them. The carriage left the Temple at approximately 9 o'clock. For more than an hour the carriage, preceded by drummers playing to drown out any support for the King and escorted by a cavalry troop with drawn sabres, made its way through Paris along a route lined with 80,000 men at arms and soldiers of the National Guard
National Guard (France)
The National Guard was the name given at the time of the French Revolution to the militias formed in each city, in imitation of the National Guard created in Paris. It was a military force separate from the regular army...
and Sans-culottes
Sans-culottes
In the French Revolution, the sans-culottes were the radical militants of the lower classes, typically urban laborers. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars...
.
In the neighbourhood of the present rue de Cléry, Baron Batz
Jean, Baron de Batz
Jean Pierre de Batz, Baron de Sainte-Croix, known as the Baron de Batz, , was a French royalist and businessman...
, a supporter of the Royal family who had financed the flight to Varennes, had summoned 300 Royalists to enable the King's escape. Louis was to be hidden in a house in the rue de Cléry belonging to the Count of Marsan. Baron Batz leaped forward calling "Follow me, my friends, let us save the King!", but his associates had been denounced and only a few had been able to turn up. Three of them were killed, but Baron Batz managed to escape.
At 10 o'clock, the carriage arrived at Place de la Révolution and proceeded to a space surrounded by guns and drums, and a crowd carrying pikes and bayonets, which had been kept free at the foot of the scaffold.
Father Edgeworth
Press of the day
13 February issue of the Thermomètre du jour 'Daily Thermometer', a moderate Republican newspaper, described the King as shouting "I am lost!", citing as its source the executioner, Charles Henri SansonCharles Henri Sanson
Charles Henri Sanson, full title Chevalier Charles-Henri Sanson de Longval was the Royal Executioner of France in the court of King Louis XVI and High Executioner of the First French Republic...
.
Charles Henri Sanson
Charles Sanson responded to the story by offering his own version of events in a letter dated 20 February 1794. The account of Sanson states thatIn his letter, published along with its French mistakes in the Thermomètre of Thursday, 21 February 1793, Sanson emphasises that the King "bore all this with a composure and a firmness which has [sic] surprised us all. I remain strongly convinced that he derived this firmness from the principles of the religion by which he seemed penetrated and persuaded as no other man."
Henri Sanson
In his CauseriesCauserie
Causerie is a literary style of short informal essays mostly unknown in the English-speaking world. A causerie is generally short, light and humorous and is often published as a newspaper column . Often causerie is a current opinion piece, but it contains more verbal acrobatics and humor than a...
, Alexandre Dumas refers to a meeting circa 1830 with Henri Sanson, eldest son of Charles Sanson, who had been present at the time.
Henri Sanson was family appointed Executioner of Paris from April 1793, and would later execute Marie Antoinette.
Madame de Staël
Leboucher
Speaking to Victor HugoVictor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
in 1840, Leboucher, who had arrived in Paris from Bourges in December 1792 and was present at the execution of Louis XVI, recalled vividly:
Louis Mercier
In Le nouveau Paris, Louis Sébastien Mercier describes the execution of Louis XVI in these words:Jacques de Molay
A popular but apocryphal legend associated with the execution states that as soon as the guillotine fell, an unnamed Freemason leaped on the scaffolding, plunged his hand into the blood, and shouted, "Jacques de MolayJacques de Molay
Jacques de Molay was the 23rd and last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, leading the Order from 20 April 1292 until it was dissolved by order of Pope Clement V in 1312...
, tu es vengé!" (usually translated as, "Jacques de Molay, thou art avenged"). De Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, had reportedly cursed Louis' ancestor Philip IV
Philip IV of France
Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...
, after the latter had sentenced him to die based on false confessions. The story spread widely and the phrase remains in use today to indicate the triumph of reason and logic over "religious superstition".
Burial in the cemetery of the Madeleine
The body of Louis XVI was immediately transported to the old Church of the Madeleine (demolished in 1799), since the legislation in force forbade burial of his remains beside those of his father, the Dauphin Louis de France, at Sens. Two curates who had sworn fealty to the Revolution held a short memorial service at the church. One of them, Damoureau, stated in evidence:On 21 January 1815 Louis XVI and his wife's remains were re-buried in the Basilica of Saint-Denis where in 1816 his brother, King Louis XVIII
Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII , known as "the Unavoidable", was King of France and of Navarre from 1814 to 1824, omitting the Hundred Days in 1815...
, had a funerary monument erected by Edme Gaulle
Edme Gaulle
Edme Gaulle was a French sculptor.-Life:He began by studying drawing with Francois Devosge at the school in Dijon, then going to follow Jean Guillaume Moitte's course at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
.
Today
The area where Louis XVI and later (16 October 1793) Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I....
were buried, in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdaleine's, is today the "Square Louis XVI" greenspace, containing the classically self-effacing Expiatory Chapel
Chapelle Expiatoire
The Chapelle expiatoire is a chapel located in the eighth arrondissement, of Paris, France. This chapel is dedicated to King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie Antoinette, although they are formally buried in the Basilica of St Denis....
completed in 1826 during the reign of Louis' youngest brother Charles X
Charles X of France
Charles X was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him...
. The crypt altar stands above the exact spot where the remains of the Royal couple were originally laid to rest. The chapel narrowly escaped destruction on politico-ideological grounds during the violently anti-clerical period at the beginning of the 20th century.