Glory to the men of energy, to the inexorable patriots! * * * * * JANUARY 21, 1793.--The execution of Louis Capet took place to-day, Monday, the 21st of January, 1793! My sister and I were present at the death of Louis. A vast throng filled the Place of the Revolution. The scaffold faced the avenue of the Elysian Fields, a short distance from the spot occupied by the statue of Louis XV. At ten minutes past ten in the morning, a dull rumor, drawing nearer and nearer, announced the arrival of the condemned. My sister and I were not far from the scaffold, behind a line of Municipal Guards. We beheld a two-horse carriage draw up, accompanied by General Santerre and several officers of his staff. Claude Bernard and James Roux, an ex-priest, the municipal officers charged with guarding Capet, alighted first from the carriage, where Louis remained for two minutes' space with his confessor. Then, with firm tread, and supported by the executioners, he ascended the steps of the platform. He was clad in grey trousers and a soft white waistcoat; his purpled face betrayed intense excitement. Suddenly he stepped to the edge of the scaffold, and cried to the people: "Frenchmen, I am innocent--" At Santerre's command the roll of drums drowned the rest of the speech. Louis XVI cast a look of rage at the drummers, and cried to them angrily to desist. The drumming continued. Louis Capet was turned over to Sampson, the executioner-in-chief, and his aides. A few seconds later, the sixty-sixth of these foreign Kings of Gaul had paid the penalty of his crimes, had expiated the wrongs of the monarchy of which he was the last incarnation. The King's head, held up to the people by the headsman, was greeted with the shouts of the multitude. No. 155 of Marat's journal terminates its account of the execution of Capet with the following reflections: "The head of the tyrant has just fallen under the sword of the law; that same blow has overthrown the foundation of monarchy among us. I now believe in the Republic.... Not a voice cried for grace during the execution; a profound silence reigned about the scaffold. But when the head of Capet was shown to the people, from all sides rose the cries, 'Long live the Nation! Long live the Republic!' The execution of Louis XVI is one of those memorable events which mark epochs in the life of nations. It will have an immense influence on the fate of the despots of Europe and on those peoples who have as yet not broken their chains." Robespierre, in a letter to one of his constituents (second trimester, page 3), penned the following appreciation of the consequences of the great political occurrence: