Page:Trial of Louis XVI (1793).pdf/7

 bal, drawn up in the tennis members of the Constituent court of Versailles, by the Assembly. On the 23d of June you wished to dictate laws to the nation; you surrounded her representatives with troops, and you ordered them to separate. Your declarations, and the process verbals of the Assembly prove these facts. What have you to answer? "

Louis. "There did not exist laws which forbade me."

President. "You marched an army against the citizens of Paris. Your satellites shed the blood of many of them, and you did not remove this army until the taking of the Bastille informed you that the people had been victorious. The discourses held by you on the 9th, 12th, and 14th of July, shewed what had been your intentions, and the massacre of the Thuilleries depose against you. What have you to answer?"

Louis. "I was at liberty to order the march of the troops; but had never the intention to shed blood."

President. "After these events, and notwithstanding the promises which you made on the 15th, in the Constituent Assembly, and on the 17th, in the Hotel de Ville, at Paris, you persisted in your plans against national liberty; you for a long time neglected executing the decrees of August 11, concerning the abolition of personal servitude. You for a long time refused to acknowledge the declaration of the rights of Frenchmen; you doubled the number of your guards; you permitted, in the Orgies, passing under your eyes, that the National cockade should be trodden under foot; the white cockade mounted, and the nation abused. It was not till after the defeat of your guards that you changed your language and renewed your promises. The proofs of these facts are in your observations of the 18th of September upon the decrees of the 11th of August, in the process verbals of the Constituent Assembly, in the events at Versailles, on the 5th and 6th of October, and in the discourse which you held the same day to a deputation of the Constituent Assembly when you