Execution of Louis XVI

The execution of Louis XVI, by means of the guillotine, took place on 21 January 1793 at the Place de la Révolution ("Revolution Square", formerly Place Louis XV, and renamed Place de la Concorde in 1795) in Paris. It was a major event of the Revolution. He was convicted in a near-unanimous vote (while no one voted "not guilty", several deputies abstained) and condemned to death by a large majority.

Louis XVI awoke at 5 o'clock and after being helped to dress by his valet Jean-Baptiste Cléry, went to meet with the non-juring Irish priest Father Henry Essex Edgeworth de Firmont to make his confession. He heard his last Mass, served by Cléry, and received Communion. The Mass requisites were provided by special direction of the authorities. Upon Father Edgeworth's advice he avoided a last farewell scene with his family. At 7 o'clock he confided his last wishes to the priest. His Royal seal was to go to the Dauphin and his wedding ring to the Queen. After receiving the priest's blessing he went to meet Antoine Joseph Santerre, Commander of the Guard. A green carriage was waiting in the second court. He seated himself in it with the priest, with two militiamen sitting opposite them. The carriage left the Temple at approximately 9 o'clock. For more than an hour the carriage, preceded by drummers playing to drown out any support for the King and escorted by a cavalry troop with drawn sabres, made its way through Paris along a route lined with 80,000 men at arms and soldiers of the National Guard and Sans-culottes.

In the neighbourhood of the present rue de Cléry, the Baron de Batz, a supporter of the Royal family who had financed the flight to Varennes, had summoned 300 Royalists to enable the King's escape. Louis was to be hidden in a house in the rue de Cléry belonging to the Count of Marsan. The Baron leaped forward calling "Follow me, my friends, let us save the King!", but his associates had been denounced and only a few had been able to turn up. Three of them were killed, but de Batz managed to escape.

At 10 o'clock, the carriage arrived at Place de la Révolution and proceeded to a space surrounded by guns and drums, and a crowd carrying pikes and bayonets, which had been kept free at the foot of the scaffold.

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