A King dying by such violence appeals impressively to the imagination; as the like must do, and ought to do.  And yet at bottom it is not the King dying, but the Man!  Kingship is a coat; the grand loss is of the skin.  The man from whom you take his Life, to him can the whole combined world do more?  Lally went on his hurdle, his mouth filled with a gag.  Miserablest mortals, doomed for picking pockets, have a whole five-act Tragedy in them, in that dumb pain, as they go to the gallows, unregarded; they consume the cup of trembling down to the lees.  For Kings and for Beggars, for the justly doomed and the unjustly, it is a hard thing to die.  Pity them all:  thy utmost pity with all aids and appliances and throne-and-scaffold contrasts, how far short is it of the thing pitied!

A Confessor has come; Abbe Edgeworth, of Irish extraction, whom the King knew by good report, has come promptly on this solemn mission.  Leave the Earth alone, then, thou hapless King; it with its malice will go its way, thou also canst go thine.  A hard scene yet remains:  the parting with our loved ones.  Kind hearts, environed in the same grim peril with us; to be left here!  Let the Reader look with the eyes of Valet Clery, through these glass-doors, where also the Municipality watches; and see the cruellest of scenes: 

’At half-past eight, the door of the ante-room opened:  the Queen appeared first, leading her Son by the hand; then Madame Royale and Madame Elizabeth:  they all flung themselves into the arms of the King.  Silence reigned for some minutes; interrupted only by sobs.  The Queen made a movement to lead his Majesty towards the inner room, where M. Edgeworth was waiting unknown to them:  “No,” said the King, “let us go into the dining-room, it is there only that I can see you.”  They entered there; I shut the door of it, which was of glass.  The King sat down, the Queen on his left hand, Madame Elizabeth on his right, Madame Royale almost in front; the young Prince remained standing between his Father’s legs.  They all leaned towards him, and often held him embraced.  This scene of woe lasted an hour and three-quarters; during which we could hear nothing; we could see only that always when the King spoke, the sobbings of the Princesses redoubled, continued for some minutes; and that then the King began again to speak.’ (Clery’s Narrative (London, 1798), cited in Weber, iii. 312.)—­And so our meetings and our partings do now end!  The sorrows we gave each other; the poor joys we faithfully shared, and all our lovings and our sufferings, and confused toilings under the earthly Sun, are over.  Thou good soul, I shall never, never through all ages of Time, see thee any more!—­Never!  O Reader, knowest thou that hard word?

For nearly two hours this agony lasts; then they tear themselves asunder.  “Promise that you will see us on the morrow.”  He promises:—­Ah yes, yes; yet once; and go now, ye loved ones; cry to God for yourselves and me!—­It was a hard scene, but it is over.  He will not see them on the morrow.  The Queen in passing through the ante-room glanced at the Cerberus Municipals; and with woman’s vehemence, said through her tears, “Vous etes tous des scelerats.”