Gazette Of The United States

PROCLAMATION
Of the Provisional Executive Council,
January 20, 1793, Second Year of the Republic.

The Provisional Executive Council deliberating on the measures to be taken for the execution of the decrees of the National Convention of the 15th, 17th, 19th and 20th of January, 1793, enacts the following regulations:

1st. The execution of the sentence of Louis Capet, shall take place tomorrow (the 21st of January.)
2d. The place of execution, shall be La Place de la Revolution, ci-devant Louis XV. between the Pedestal and the Champs Elysees.
3d. Louis Capet shall set out from the Temple at 8 o'clock in the morning, so that the execution shall take place at noon.
4th. The Commissioners of the Department of Paris; the Commissioners of the Municipality, and members of the criminal tribunal, shall assist at the execution, the Secretary Register shall draw up the minutes, and the said Commissioners and members of the tribunal, as soon as the execution is over, shall come to give an account to the Council, who shall continue in a state of permanent sitting, during the whole day.

By the Provisional Executive Council,
ROLAND, CLAVIERE, MONGE, LE BRUN, GARAT, PACHE.

The Proclamation of the Provisional Executive Council, relative to his execution, had hardly been notified to Louis before he requested permission to confer with his family. The commissioners testifying their embarrassment at this request, proposed to him that his family should be brought into his apartment, to which he agreed. His wife, his sister, and his children accordingly came to him; and they conferred together in the room in which he was accustomed to dine. This interview lasted two hours and a half; their conversation was very earnest.

We may conceive what must have been the nature of the scene but a narrative of it is impossible, for we do not take the Commissioners of the Commune to be very faithful or very feeling historians. Rumour, however says, that the Queen had been for some days in a state of distraction—that at times her mind was totally absent, and she was to be roused from lethargy to a sense of her sorrows. All that we can say upon this authority is, that the King, after this interview, waited for his summons without the least symptom of dismay.

The King wished to cut off his hair; scissors were refused him they took away his knife.—“Fools! (said he) to think I would basely turn my hand against my own life!” His family asked, whether there might not see him again in the morning? to this he made no answer, and Madam Elizabeth saw him no more. Louis cried out of his chamber, “Oh the murderers! the murderers!” Addressing herself to their son, Antoinette said “Learn by the misfortunes of your father, not to avenge his death!” The Princess, whose critical age joined with her sufferings, had brought her into the most pitiable state, received, as we understand from one of the Paris Journals, the sacrament on the same day; and her life was despaired of. Our readers will see that we can only give these particulars on questionable authority.

Arrived at the fatal spot, the unfortunate monarch mounted the scaffold alone, the Commissioners, the Mayor, and even his Confessor, remained at the foot of it. He had on nothing but a white under waistcoat, his neck and breast open, and his hair rolled up as the Abbes wear theirs.

As he placed himself upon the Guillotine, he said, “I commit my soul to God.”