The trial of Louis XVI—officially called "Citizen Louis Capet" since being dethroned—before the National Convention in December 1792 was a key event of the French Revolution. He was convicted of high treason and other crimes, resulting in his execution.

December 1792

The trial began on 3 December. On 4 December the convention's president Bertrand Barère presented it with the fatal indictment (drafted by Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet) and decreed the interrogation of Louis XVI. Louis made his entrance into the Convention chamber then: "Louis", said Barère de Vieuzac, "the nation accuses you, the National Assembly decreed on 3 December that you would be judged by it; on 6 December, it decided that you would be brought to the dock. We shall read you the act giving the offenses with which you are charged...".

The charges

Louis was then read the charges by the convention's secretary, Jean-Baptiste Mailhe: "Louis, the French Nation accuses you of having committed a multitude of crimes to establish your tyranny, in destroying her freedom."

Cross-examination

Louis XVI heard the 33 charges sitting in the armchair in which he had accepted the Constitution. After the secretary had read him the accusation act, Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac repeated each charge and questioned Louis XVI.

The defense, 26 December 1792

The defense team

Louis XVI sought the most illustrious legal minds in France as his defense team. He first asked Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target, former deputy of the National Constituent Assembly and hero of the Parlements of the ancien régime, to lead his defense, but the elderly lawyer refused on account of his age. The task of lead counsel fell to Raymond Desèze, who was assisted by François Denis Tronchet (Target's closest colleague, who came on board reluctantly, only at the King's insistence) and Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes (Louis XVI's former Secretary of State). Though he had only two weeks to prepare his defense arguments. Desèze's brilliance so shone through in a first draft that, although it was moving, Louis rejected it as too rhetorical, saying, "I do not want to play on their (the Convention's) feelings". When the time came to deliver the defense (26 December 1792), despite having had no sleep for over four days, he pleaded the king's case for three hours, arguing eloquently yet discreetly that the revolution spare his life. Beginning with a description of why the charges were invalid (under the terms of the Constitution of 1791 Louis, as king, was immune from prosecution), he attacked the right of National Convention to stand as judge and jury. Finally, he moved to a rejection of the charges in the acte enonciatif drawn up by the constitution charge by charge, with a royalist history of the revolution, portraying Louis as "the restorer of French Liberty". He finished, like many of the set-piece speeches of the revolution, with an appeal to history: "Louis ascended the throne at the age of twenty, and at the age of twenty he gave to the throne the example of character. He brought to the throne no wicked weaknesses, no corrupting passions. He was economical, just, severe. He showed himself always the constant friend of the people. The people wanted the abolition of servitude. He began by abolishing it on his own lands. The people asked for reforms in the criminal law... he carried out these reforms. The people wanted liberty: he gave it to them. The people themselves came before him in his sacrifices. Nevertheless, it is in the name of these very people that one today demands... Citizens, I cannot finish... I stop myself before History. Think how it will judge your judgement, and that the judgement of him will be judged by the centuries."

Declaration of Louis XVI in his defense

"You have heard my defense, I would not repeat the details. In talking to you perhaps for the last time, I declare that my conscience reproaches me with nothing, and my defenders have told you the truth. I never feared the public examination of my conduct, but my heart is torn by the imputation that I would want to shed the blood of the people and especially that the misfortunes of August 10th be attributed to me. I avow that the many proofs that I have always acted from my love of the people, and the manner in which I have always conducted myself, seemed to prove that I did not fear to put myself forward in order to spare their blood, and forever prevent such an imputation."

The verdict, 14–15 January

Given overwhelming evidence of Louis' collusion with the invaders, the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Ultimately, 683 deputies voted to convict the former king. Not a single deputy voted "no," though 26 attached some condition to their votes. Twenty-six deputies were absent from the vote, most on official business. Twenty-three deputies abstained, for various reasons. Several abstained because they felt they had been elected to make laws rather than to judge.

The punishment, 16–17 January

The Mailhe amendment

For the king's sentence, deputy Jean-Baptiste Mailhe proposed "Death, but [...] I think it would be worthy of the Convention to consider whether it would be useful to policy to delay the execution" which was supported by twenty-six deputies. This "Mailhe amendment" was regarded by some of Mailhe's contemporaries as a conspiracy to save the king's life. It was even suggested that Mailhe had been paid, perhaps by Spanish gold.

The vote

Paris voted overwhelmingly for death, 21 to 3. Robespierre voted first, and said "The sentiment that led me to call for the abolition of the death penalty is the same that today forces me to demand that it be applied to the tyrant of my country." Philippe Égalité, formerly the Duke of Orléans and Louis' own cousin, voted for his execution, a cause of much future bitterness among French monarchists. There were 721 voters in total. 34 voted for death with attached conditions (23 of whom invoked the Mailhe amendment), 2 voted for life imprisonment in irons, 319 voted for imprisonment until the end of the war (to be followed by banishment). 361 voted for death without conditions, just carrying the vote by a marginal majority. Louis was to be put to death. A subsequent vote, on the proposal that the sentence be respited, saw a vote of 380–286 in favour of immediate execution.

Execution

Louis was guillotined on 21 January 1793 in the Place de la Révolution (renamed Place de la Concorde in 1795).

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