at man the King of France and Navarre, the
most Christian King, Louis XVI.? Go back to the day of the coronation,
June 11, 1775. It is {204} just seventeen years and nine days ago! Do
you remember the Cathedral of Rheims, luminous, glittering; the
cardinals, ministers, and marshals of France, the red ribbons, the blue
ribbons, the lay peers with their vests of cloth-of-gold, their violet
ducal mantles lined with ermine; the clerical peers with cope and
cross? Do you remember the King taking Charlemagne's sword in his
hand, and then prostrating himself before the altar on a great
kneeling-cushion of velvet sown with golden lilies? Do you see him
vested by the grand-chamberlain with the tunic, the dalmatica, and the
ermine-lined mantle which represent the vestments of a sub-deacon,
deacon, and priest, because the King is not merely a sovereign, but a
pontiff? Do you see him seizing the royal sceptre, that golden sceptre
set with oriental pearls, and carvings representing the great
Carlovingian Emperor on a throne adorned with lions and eagles? Do you
remember the pealing of the bells, the chords of the organ, the blare
of trumpets, the clouds of incense, the birds flying in the nave?

And now, instead of the coronation the pillory; instead of the crown
the hideous red cap; instead of hymns and murmurs of admiration and
respect,--insults, the buffoonery of the fish-market, shouts of
contempt and hatred, threats of murder. Ah! the time is not far
distant when a Conventionist will break the vial containing the sacred
oil on the pavement of the Abbey of Saint Remi. How slippery is the
swift descent, the fatal descent by which a {205} sovereign who disarms
himself glides down from the heights of power and glory to the depths
of opprobrium and sorrow! There he is! Not content with putting the
red bonnet on his head, he keeps it there, and mumming in the Jacobin
coiffure, he cries: "Long live the nation!" The crowd find the
spectacle amusing. A National Guard, to whom some one has passed a
bottle of wine, offers the complaisant King a drink. Perhaps the wine
is poisoned. No matter; Louis XVI. takes a glass of it.

While all this is going on, two deputies, Isnard and Vergniaud, present
themselves. "Citizens," says the first, "I am Isnard, a deputy. If
what you demand were at once granted, it might be thought you extorted
it by force. In the name of the law and the National Assembly, I ask
you to respect the con