TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF LOUIS XIV        

                "On January 20, 1793, the National Convention condemned Louis XVI 
               to death, his execution scheduled for the next day. Louis spent that
                evening saying goodbye to his wife and children. The following day
                dawned cold and wet.Louis arose at five. At eight o'clock a guard 
                of 1,200 horsemen arrived to escort the former king on a two-hour
                          carriage ride to his place of execution ......

                                In December 11, 1792 King Louis XVI was brought to trial in front of the National Convention,
                       which acted as the jury. The King was charged with conspiring against the nation. His attorney was 
                      his former minister of affairs and a philosopher, Malsherbes. But with the convincing arguments of the
                       Girondins, Jacobins and the Montagnards, and the unveiling of Louis's secret safe ,which held his
                        secret papers about bribing the city officals, the people's case was more then rock solid. With all of
                       this evidence against him, the convention agreed that Louis XVI, King of France, was guilty of
                       conspiring against the people of France and sentenced him to death by guillotine on January 21,1793.

                                                                   Louis XIV        

                                Louis XVI's morning started off when Santerre of the National Guard and two representatives
                       from the Commune showed up at 8:00 a.m. to the Place de la Revolution. He rode in a coach through
                       the heavily guarded streets. The Commune hired thousands of armed men to make sure that no one
                       tried to free the king. He arrived to the place of execution at ten in the morning. With his hands tied
                       behind his back, he went up the stairs of the scaffold holding the guillotine, and he got up there and
                       started speaking: "I die innocent. I pardon my enemies and I hope that my blood will be useful to the
                       French, that it will appease God's anger...." His words were cut off by the roll of drums. Then
                       Charles Sanson, the executioner, strapped him down and pulled the rope. Louis' head head fell off
                       into a basket. Sanson's son picked up the head to the shouts coming from the crowd of "Vive la
                       Nation!" The execution was over, and afterwards the people tried to dip their handkerchiefs in the
                       blood of the deceased King.

                                After the execution of King Louis XVI, the French nation continued to struggle. In January,
                       1793 the revolutionary government declared war on Britain, a war for world dominion which would
                       continue for another twenty years. Meanwhile a counterrevolution in France erupted, and the Paris
                       Commune continued to pressure the new government for more radical change. The French Revolution
                       was not over.
                                                     Marie Antoinette married Louis in 1770
                                                  when she was 14.She was executed at the guillotine on October 16, 1793
 
                    _________________________________________________________ Guillotine:
 

                                                                            
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