All was interrupted; an immediate and passionate, though short, debate began. The intervention of the King of Spain the Convention would not consider; upon the proposal that the king’s advocates should be heard once more a debate was allowed. Many members joined it, though in brief periods. Robespierre among others, spoke intensely. He demanded that sentence should be read out and given before there could be any consideration of appeal. That opinion (not through him) prevailed, and the opening and arranging of the votes continued. A ceaseless little crackling of tearing papers, the whispered comments of men in groups, now and then some cry from the public in the galleries, broke the silence. It was not far from midnight when a further movement among the clerks at the table, a comparison of sums, and heads bent together, scrutinizing the additions, prefaced the last scene of this act. The paper, with the figures written on it, was handed up to the chairman. That chairman was Vergniaud; perhaps the noblest, certainly the most eloquent, of the Girondins. He rose in his place above them, holding that paper before him, and read out in the grave and even voice which had often moved their debates: “It is with profound sadness that I declare the penalty incurred by Louis Capet to be, by the vote of the majority of this assembly, that of death.” Of seven hundred and twenty-one men who had voted, three hundred and ninety-seven had demanded the scaffold, a majority of seventy-three. [Illustration: PROCLAMATION OF THE PROVISIONAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL _To face p. 204_ ] It was in complete silence that this memorable sentence fell. That silence was continued for some moments unbroken. The advocates of the king were now permitted to enter, for sentence had been formally delivered, and old Malesherbes, short, strong in figure for all his years, and now so far oblivious of his dignity and name as to be weeping, put forward his last plea. Sentence of death could not be given, by all the traditions of their law, unless two-thirds of the bench (for the French will have no single judges) concurred. And again, the prisoner had not had all those guarantees which a prisoner should have. And again, since it was as the head of the whole nation that he had acted, and since it was by the whole nation that he was conceived to be judged, then let the whole nation speak. He demanded an appeal to the French people.