_THE TRIAL OF LOUIS--Indecision of the Girondists, and its Effects--The Royal Family insulted by the Agents of the Community--The King deprived of his Son's society--The King brought to trial before the Convention--His first Examination--Carried back to Prison amidst Insult and Abuse--Tumult in the Assembly--The King deprived of Intercourse with his Family--Malesherbes appointed as Counsel to defend the King--and De Seze--Louis again brought before the Convention--Opening Speech of De Seze--King remanded to the Temple--Stormy Debate--Eloquent Attack of Vergniaud on the Jacobins--Sentence of DEATH pronounced against the King--General Sympathy for his Fate--Dumouriez arrives in Paris--Vainly tries to avert the King's Fate--LOUIS XVI. BEHEADED on 21st January, 1793--MARIE ANTOINETTE on the 16th October thereafter--The Princess ELIZABETH in May 1794--The Dauphin perishes, by cruelty, June 8th, 1795--The Princess Royal exchanged for La Fayette, 19th December, 1795._ [Sidenote: INDECISION OF THE GIRONDISTS.] We have already said, that the vigorous and masculine, as well as virtuous exhortations of Madame Roland, were thrown away upon her colleagues, whose fears were more than female. The Girondists could not be made to perceive that, though their ferocious adversaries were feared through France, yet they were also hated. The moral feeling of all Frenchmen who had any left, detested the authors of a long train of the most cold-blooded murders; the suspicions of all men of property were attached to the conduct of a party, whose leaders rose from indigence to affluence by fines, confiscations, sequestrations, besides every other kind of plunder, direct and indirect. If the majority of the Convention had adopted the determination of boldly resisting their unprincipled tyrants, and preventing, at whatever hazard, the murder of the King, the strength of the country would probably have supported a constituted authority against the usurpations of the Community of Paris, which had no better title to tyrannize over the Convention, and by so doing to govern France at pleasure, than had the council of the meanest town in the kingdom.