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PARTISAN REVIEW
that the people would not vote
to
kill the king. The J acobins, more committed
to extremism than to democracy, were violently opposed to a referendum
(and to the Girondins themselves), and the motion was defeated. Arguments
for and against the death penalty were passionate. Moderates like Vergniaud
pleaded for mercy for the king, who, as he appeared in court, was a tired,
humbled, and defeated man. Thomas Paine spoke eloquently in favor of exile
to America, whose Revolution the French king had generously supported;
there Louis would be re-educated and learn firsthand about democracy, citi–
zenship, and equality.
ButJacobin axioms, as cold and trenchant as the guillotine, were more
effective and memorable rhetoric than Girondin emotional pleas for mercy:
"No man can reign innocently"; "this man must reign or die"; "Louis must die
because the nation must live." Essentially, the task of Robespierre and Saint–
Just was to discredit the notion of pity for a "tyrant-king" and show that the
death penalty was the only patriotic response. Advocating capital punishment
posed something of a stumbling block for Robespierre, who had sought to
abolish the death penalty just a few months before. He solved the problem of
his own inconsistency by arguing that a king had nothing in common with the
rest of humanity. Robespierre and Saint-Just were scathing in their contempt
for pity for an inhuman king. Robespierre admitted to having feelings of
compassion, but insisted that compassion for the enemy was a weakness
tantamount to collaboration with tyranny. Counter-revolutionary sensibility
had to be sacrificed in the name of "oppressed humanity." The fact that peo–
ple felt pity for the king illustrated their moral and intellectual insufficiency,
their inability to understand "true humanity" and the primacy of the abstrac–
tion over tl1e individual.
The vote on Louis's fate could hardly have been closer. On the first
vote concerning his guilt, out of 718 members of the Convention who were
present, 691 declared that the king was guilty. On the question of the death
penalty, 721 voting members were present: 321 voted for punishments
other than death; 361 voted for death; 13 for death with reprieve, 26 for
death but with a debate on reprieve. The final count: 360 to 361, a majority
ofone.
The execution took place on a cloudy day at the Place de la Revolu–
tion, formerly Place Louis XV, today Place de la Concorde. Silent crowds
lined the streets; the king, whose piety was universally acknowledged,
prayed. After mounting the steps to the guillotine, he furiously protested
when the executioner tied his hands, agreeing to this humiliation only when
his priest alluded to Christ's martyrdom. At one point during the last mo–
ments on the scaffold, Louis broke free from the guard, ran to the front of
the platform and proclaimed his innocence and his love for the French, and
