It must not be forgotten that he lived in a time of unprecedented difficulty.  He was a lamb governing tigers.  So far as his own personal bearing is concerned, who is there among his predecessors, that, replaced upon the throne, would have resisted the vicissitudes brought about by internal discord, rebellion, and riot, like himself?  What said he when one of the heterogeneous, plebeian, revolutionary assemblies not only insulted him, but added to the insult a laugh?  “If you think you can govern better, I am ready to resign,” was the mild but firm reply of Louis.

How glorious would have been the triumph for the most civilized nation in the centre of Europe had the insulter taken him at his word.  When the experimentalists did attempt to govern, we all know, and have too severely felt, the consequences.  Yet this unfortunate monarch has been represented to the world as imbecile, and taxed with wanting character, firmness, and fortitude, because he has been vanquished!  The despot-conqueror has been vanquished since!

His acquirements were considerable.  His memory was remarkably retentive and well-stored,—­a quality, I should infer from all I have observed, common to most Sovereigns.  By the multiplicity of persons they are in the habit of seeing, and the vast variety of objects continually passing through their minds, this faculty is kept in perpetual exercise.

But the circumstance which probably injured Louis XVI. more than any other was his familiarity with the locksmith, Gamin.  Innocent as was the motive whence it arose, this low connection lessened him more with the whole nation than if he had been the most vicious of Princes.  How careful Sovereigns ought to be, with respect to the attention they bestow on men in humble life; especially those whose principles may have been demoralized by the meanness of the associations consequent upon their occupation, and whose low origin may have denied them opportunities of intellectual cultivation.

This observation map even be extended to the liberal arts.  It does not follow because a monarch is fond of these that he should so far forget himself as to make their professors his boon companions.  He loses ground whenever he places his inferiors on a level with himself.  Men are estimated from the deference they pay to their own stations in society.  The great Frederic of Prussia used to sap, “I must show myself a King, because my trade is royalty.”

It was only in destitution and anguish that the real character of Louis developed itself.  He was firm and patient, utterly regardless of himself, but wrung to the heart for others, not even excepting his deluded murderers.  Nothing could swerve him from his trust in Heaven, and he left a glorious example of how far religion can triumph over every calamity and every insult this world has power to inflict.

There was a national guard, who, at the time of the imprisonment of the Royal Family, was looked upon as the most violent of Jacobins, and the sworn enemy of royalty.  On that account the sanguinary agents of the self-created Assembly employed him to frequent the Temple.  His special commission was to stimulate the King and Royal Family by every possible argument to self-destruction.