King Louis slept sound, till five in the morning, when Clery, as he had been ordered, awoke him.  Clery dressed his hair.  While this went forward, Louis took a ring from his watch, and kept trying it on his finger; it was his wedding-ring, which he is now to return to the Queen as a mute farewell.  At half-past six, he took the Sacrament; and continued in devotion, and conference with Abbe Edgeworth.  He will not see his Family:  it were too hard to bear.

At eight, the Municipals enter:  the King gives them his Will and messages and effects; which they, at first, brutally refuse to take charge of:  he gives them a roll of gold pieces, a hundred and twenty-five louis; these are to be returned to Malesherbes, who had lent them.  At nine, Santerre says the hour is come.  The King begs yet to retire for three minutes.  At the end of three minutes, Santerre again says the hour is come.  ’Stamping on the ground with his right foot, Louis answers:  “Partons, let us go."’—­How the rolling of those drums comes in, through the Temple bastions and bulwarks, on the heart of a queenly wife; soon to be a widow!  He is gone, then, and has not seen us?  A Queen weeps bitterly; a King’s Sister and Children.  Over all these Four does Death also hover:  all shall perish miserably save one; she, as Duchesse d’Angouleme, will live,—­not happily.

At the Temple Gate were some faint cries, perhaps from voices of pitiful women:  “Grace!  Grace!” Through the rest of the streets there is silence as of the grave.  No man not armed is allowed to be there:  the armed, did any even pity, dare not express it, each man overawed by all his neighbours.  All windows are down, none seen looking through them.  All shops are shut.  No wheel-carriage rolls this morning, in these streets but one only.  Eighty thousand armed men stand ranked, like armed statues of men; cannons bristle, cannoneers with match burning, but no word or movement:  it is as a city enchanted into silence and stone; one carriage with its escort, slowly rumbling, is the only sound.  Louis reads, in his Book of Devotion, the Prayers of the Dying:  clatter of this death-march falls sharp on the ear, in the great silence; but the thought would fain struggle heavenward, and forget the Earth.

As the clocks strike ten, behold the Place de la Revolution, once Place de Louis Quinze:  the Guillotine, mounted near the old Pedestal where once stood the Statue of that Louis!  Far round, all bristles with cannons and armed men:  spectators crowding in the rear; d’Orleans Egalite there in cabriolet.  Swift messengers, hoquetons, speed to the Townhall, every three minutes:  near by is the Convention sitting,—­vengeful for Lepelletier.  Heedless of all, Louis reads his Prayers of the Dying; not till five minutes yet has he finished; then the Carriage opens.  What temper he is in?  Ten different witnesses will give ten different accounts of it.  He is in the collision of all tempers; arrived now at the black Mahlstrom and descent of Death:  in sorrow, in indignation, in resignation struggling to be resigned.  “Take care of M. Edgeworth,” he straitly charges the Lieutenant who is sitting with them:  then they two descend.