triking at the weakest
point, and reducing its warlike power by encouraging Irish
disaffection.

On the 12th of August Rebecqui had proposed that the king should be
tried by the Convention that was to meet, and that there should be an
appeal to the people. On October 1 the question was brought before the
Convention, and a Commission of twenty-four was appointed to examine
the evidence. They reported on the 6th of November; and from that
moment the matter did not rest. On the following day, Mailhe, in the
name of the jurists, reported that there was no legal obstacle, from
the inviolability acknowledged by the Constitution. Mousson replied
that since Lewis was deposed, he had no further responsibility. A very
young member sprang suddenly into notoriety, on the 13th, by arguing
that there was no question of justice and its forms; a king deserved
death not for what he did, but for what he was. The speaker's name was
St. Just. On November 20, before the debate had gone either way,
Roland appeared, with news of an important discovery. The king had an
iron safe in his palace, which the locksmith had betrayed. Roland had
found that it contained 625 documents. A committee of twelve was
directed to examine them, and they found the proofs of a great scheme
of corruption, and of the venality of Mirabeau. On December 3 it was
resolved that the king should be tried by the Convention; the order of
proceedings was determined on the 6th, and on the 10th the indictment
was brought in. On the next day Lewis appeared before his judges, and
was interrogated by the President. He said, in his replies, that he
knew nothing of an iron safe, and had never given money to Mirabeau,
or to any deputy. When he got back to prison the unhappy man
exclaimed, "They asked questions for which I was so little prepared
that I denied my own hand." Ten days were allowed to prepare the
defence. He was assisted by Malesherbes, by the famous jurist
Tronchet, and by Deseze, a younger man, who made the speech. It was
unconvincing, for the advocates perceived, no better than their
client, where the force and danger of the accusation lay.

Everybody believed that Lewis had brought the invader into the
country, but it was not proved in evidence. If the proofs since
published had been known at the time, the defence must have been
confined to the plea that the king was inviolable; and the answer
would have been that he is covered by the responsibility of ministers,