Such was the condition of the royal family during a period of about four months, varied by the capricious mercy or cruelty of the different persons who were placed as guards over them. Their clothes became soiled, threadbare, and tattered; and they were deprived of all means of repairing their garments, lest they should convert needles and scissors into instruments of suicide. The king was not allowed the use of a razor to remove his beard; and the luxury of a barber to perform that essential part of his toilet was an expense which his foes could not incur. It was the studied endeavor of those who now rode upon the crested yet perilous billows of power, to degrade royalty to the lowest depths of debasement and contempt--that the beheading of the king and the queen might be regarded as merely the execution of a male and a female felon dragged from the loathsome dungeons of crime. CHAPTER X. EXECUTION OF THE KING. 1792-1793 Ominous preparations.--The king summoned before the Convention.--The king before the Convention.--Charges brought against him.--The king begs for a morsel of bread.--He is taken back to prison.--Advance of the allies.--Clamor for the king's life.--The king condemned to death.--Emotion of Malesherbes.--The king's demands.--The Abbe Edgeworth.--The last interview.--Anguish of the royal family.--The last embrace.--The separation.--The king receives the sacrament.--Mementoes to his family.--The king summoned to execution.--Brutality of the officers.--The brutal jailer.--The king conducted to execution.--A sad procession.--Admirable calmness of the king.--Attempt to rescue the king.--Its failure.--The guillotine.--Associations.--The king's thoughtfulness.--He undresses himself.--The king ascends the scaffold.--His speech.--The last act in the tragedy.--Burial of the king's body.--The blood-red obelisk.--Character of Louis.