University of Virginia Library

X.—THE PEOPLE AND THE CRIMINAL.

Now, my friends we will change the scene.

Come with me over three thousand miles of waves, come with me to
Paris.

Come with me, past yon heap of rocks and burnt embers:—the ruins of

the Bastile—come with me, through these scattered crowds who murmur
in the streets—hush! hold your breath as you enter this wide hall.

What see you now?

A splendid chamber—splendid, because encircled with the architectural
trophies of four hundred years—a splendid chamber, crowded by one dense
mass of human beings. Here—and here—wherever you look, you see
nothing but that wall of human faces.

Does not the awful silence that broods here, in this splendid saloon, strike
upon your hearts, with an impression of strange omen?

Tell me, oh tell me, and tell me at once, what means the horror that I
see brooding and gathering over this wall of faces? Listen!

Here in this hall, the people of France have gathered, yes, from the dear
vallies of Provence and Dauphine—from the wilds of Bretagne—from
the palaces and huts of Paris, the people have gathered to try a great
Criminal.

That criminal sits yonder in the felon's seat—a man of respectable appearance—sitting
there, with a woman of strange loveliness by his side—
sitting there, with the only uncovered brow in all this vast assemblage!

That criminal is Louis Capet, he is to be tried here to day, for treason to
the people of France.

And when you look upon that mild-visaged man, sitting there, with the
beautiful woman by his side, and feel inclined to pity him—to weep for
that tender woman—as you see the lowering looks, of this vast crowd directed
to the pair—as you feel that this awful silence, brooding and gathering
on every side, speaks a terror, a horror more to be feared than the loudest
words.—

Then as pity, sympathy, gather over your hearts, then I pray you in the
name of God to remember, that this man here, sits clothed with the groans,
the tears, the blood of fifteen million people—yes, that the mildly beautiful
pearls, that rise and fall, with every pulsation of that woman's bosom, if
transformed into their original elements, would flood the wide hall with two
rivers—a river of tears, a river of blood!

And now, as the great question is about to be decided—Shall Louis the
Traitor-King, live or die!—let us for a moment, I beseech you, look at
the great moral, the great truth of this scene

Ah, is it not a sublime sight, this that breaks upon our eye—a King on
Trial for treason to his People! For ages, and for ages, these Kings have
waded up to thrones, through rivers of blood, yes built their thrones upon
islands of dead bodies, centered in those rivers of blood—and now, and
now, the cry of vengeance, rising from fifteen millions up to God, has
pierced the eternal ear, and called his vengeance down!

It is a sublime sight that we have here—a King on trial for his crimes—
his people the judges and the executioners.

Do you know the regret that seizes my soul, when I contemplate this
scene?

That we Americans, after our Revolution, did not bring our Traitor-King.
George the Third, to Independence Hall! and there, while the dead of the
Revolution gathered around him—yes crowded the hall and darkened far
over Independence Square—and there while the widows and the orphans
of the Massacred heroes came to the bar, blasting the Kingly Murderer,
with their cries and tears—I do regret, that we, the people, did not try the
Traitor-King, the Murderer-Pope for his crimes.

Ah would not that have been a solemn scene! While the deep groans
the orphans wail sadly like organ-music pealing from the grave, while the
dead gather round thronging to the witness-seat—yes, here, come the Ministers
of Religion kneeling around the Felon-King—with the Book of God
in their hands, they pray for his guilty soul—they bid him prepare for the
judgment of the people. They point to yonder square—they point to the
Scaffold—the AXE! George of England, prepare! This day convicted of
Treason to the people, convicted of wholesale Murder, committed upon a
whole Nation—“This day you die!”

Ah, would not that have been a sight for a world to see? To have laid
his anointed head upon the block—to have sent him down, the shades
death, the dead around him, and the curses of millions in his ears!

Then to have written over his grave—“Here lies the Traitor-King, convicted
of Murder and sentenced to death one month after the capture of
Yorktown!”

But we are in Paris again—again we stand in that wide hall, where Louis
of France, awaits his fate.

Hark! at this moment as the vote is about to be taken, a man short in
stature, yet with a bold brow rises yonder—rises and pleads for the life of
the Traitor-King!

Yes, with outstretched hands, an earnest voice, a gleaming eye, that man
pleads for the life of Louis of France!

Let us not, he exclaims, stain our glorious cause, even with the blood of
a King! all punishments of death, are abhorrent in the eyes of God! Let
us tell to the world that we found this King guilty of Treason, Treason to
his People! But that we scorned to take his guilty life! Punishment by
death is a libel on God and Man—let us spare the Traitor-King! Let us
remember that his Government with its ocean of crimes, had one redeeming
trait—it was this King who gave arms and men to Washington, in the
war of the American Revolution!

Let then these United States be the safeguard and asylum of Louis
Capet.—There, far removed from the miseries and crimes of royalty, he
may learn that the system of government, consists not in Kings but in the
People.

And who was the unknown man, who companioned only by men like La

Fayette, stood there pleading for the life of the King? Who was this
Stranger, that while all around were scowling death in his face, dared to beg
the life of the Traitor-King?

Ah that little man who stood there, alone in that breathless hall, with
such mighty eloquence warming over his lofty brow?

That little man was one of that illustrious band, who had been made
citizens of France—France the Redeemed and New Born! Yes, with
Macintosh, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson and Washington, he had been
elected a citizen of France—with these great men he hailed the era of the
French Revolution as the dawn of God's Millennium—he had hurried to
Paris, urged by the same deep love of man, that accompanied him in the
darkest hours of the American Revolution,—and there, there pleading for
the Traitor-King, alone in that breathless hall he stood, the Author-Hero,
Thomas Paine!