SUSAN DUNN
81
event in French history. Another analyst of French history, Andre Malraux,
wrote in the pages of
Partisall Review
in 1955, in an article on Saint-Just,
that the trial of the king had been a "mockery" ofjustice, noting that "eight
centuries of royalty sanctified in cathedrals were not so easily forgotten." Far
more complex than the taking of the Bastille, the regicide evokes the ten–
sions, contradictions, and internal power struggles of the Revolution. And it
came to symbolize the moral failure of the Jacobin Revolution. In the late
twentieth century, the regicide is still a scar on the collective French con–
sciousness, still posing fundamclllal problems of political violence, of the sepa–
ration of politics and morality, of humanitarian ends and merciless means.
It
had not been the intention of France's revolutionary leaders to de–
stroy the monarchy. During the first years of the Revolution, France was a
constitutional monarchy and rcmained so even after the king's flight to
Varennes. Only after the bloody massacre of August 10, 1792 was the
monarchy abolished. And only after the discovery of the king's secret corre–
spondence with Austria did a public trial become inevitable. Louis was ac–
cused of the murders of August 10th as well as of conspiracy with foreign
powers. Howevcr, the legal basis for trying an inviolable king was very
questionable. The Constitution, which the king had accepted, contained the
provision that should the king betray the Constitution, he would be deposed.
Were he guilty or any crime, WCI"e he to go so far as to place himself at the
head of an enemy army, abdication would be his one and only punishment.
He could be prosecuted to the full extent of the law only for crimes commit–
ted after his abdication. Given this Constitution, it took fast and fancy thinking
to find a basis for condemning the king to death. The argument was made
that the king had never truly agreed to and supported the Constitution; the
flight to Varennes, in June 1791, proved his bad faith. Opponents of the
death penalty for the king, all Girondin moderates, responded that, after the
king's flight, the Revolution had forced an unwilling monarch back on the
throne, thereby absolving him of any treasonous intentions. But for the Ja–
cabins in 1793, Louis was guilty not only of his identity, of kingship, he was
also a traitor. Treason was a new accusation against a monarch; it was a
crime that had been logically impossible under the
ancien regime.
Since the
king was believed
to
be the incarnation of the Body Politic, it was inconceiv–
able for him to betray himself:
Whereas the only other king in history to be publicly tried and exe–
cuted, Charles I of England, grandly refused to recognize the authority of the
court and did not participate in his own trial , Louis was represented by legal
counsel and proved a cooperative defendant. Much of the debate at the trial
concerned a motion for a national referendum on the king's fate. The
Girondins, hoping to save the king's life, welcomed a referendum, realizing
