A priest, a delay of three days, and an interview with his family, was all that he asked. They granted him the first and last request; but the delay was refused. In the evening he was permitted to see his wife, sister and children. They met in a chamber with glass doors, through which the municipal guards watched all the cruel scene. Falling into each other’s arms, they were for some time speechless with sorrow, and the conversation that ensued was interrupted by cries and sobs. Then the king rose, promising to see them again on the morrow, and so ended this agony of two hours. About midnight, having recovered his serenity, and prayed with his confessor, the Abbé Edgeworth, he went to bed and slept soundly. Waking at five, he heard mass and received the sacrament. At eight the municipals summoned him to execution, and, willing to spare the feelings of those whom he loved, he left without a second farewell. There was a silence of death upon all the city. Silent were the lines of soldiers—silent the gazing multitudes—silent the eighty thousand armed men who guarded with cannon the space around the scaffold. Through all these rolled the solitary carriage, and to these the king, advancing suddenly as the last moment came, said in an agitated voice, “Frenchmen, I die innocent. I pardon my enemies, and I hope that France.…” At this moment he was seized by the executioners, the drums beat and drowned his voice, and in a few seconds he was no more. All at once the strange silence was broken—the executioner upheld the severed head—the shouts of the wild populace filled the air—and then they gradually cleared off, and the business of the day went on in Paris as if no unusual thing had been done. Such was the end of Louis XVI., a virtuous and well-intentioned sovereign, on the 21st of January, 1793.—_Edwards._ X.—THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION (1792-1796). The government, after the king (Louis XVI.) was deposed, was placed in the hands of the National Assembly—or Convention, as it now called itself—of deputies chosen by the people. There is nothing but what is sad and terrible to be told of France for the next four or five years, and the whole account of what happened would be too hard for you to understand, and some part is too dreadful to dwell upon.