# Speeches of Maximilien Robespierre/Asking the Death Penalty for Louis XVI

ASKING THE DEATH PENALTY FOR LOUIS XVI
The trial of the King was opened by the Constituent Assembly (the Convention). On December 3, 1792, Robespierre delivered his first address on this subject.
Citizens! Without its knowledge, the Constituent Assembly has been turned aside from its proper task. The point is not merely that of trying the King. Louis is not the accused. You are not the judges! You are—you cannot be other than statesmen, the representatives of the nation. You have not to give a judgment for or against an individual; on the contrary, you must adopt a measure of public welfare, achieve an act of national wisdom. In a republic, a dethroned king is a source of danger; he will either endanger the safety of the state and attempt to destroy liberty, or he will take steps to consolidate both.
Now, I maintain that your deliberations hitherto directly oppose this end. What, after all, is the attitude prescribed by sound policy in order to strengthen the infant republic? Our object should be to engrave deep in the hearts of men a contempt for royalty, and to terrify all the King's supporters.
Now, if you will present his crime to the world as a ​problem, his cause as the object of the most imposing, most painstaking, most difficult discussion that could engage the attention of the representatives of the French people, if you will thus place a great, incommensurable distance between what once he was, and the dignity of a plain citizen, you will have discovered the true secret of permitting him to remain a danger to liberty.
Louis was King and the Republic was founded. The question before you is disposed of by these few words alone. Louis was dethroned by his crimes. Louis denounced the French people as counter-revolutionaries; to conquer them he summoned the armies of the tyrants, his brothers. The victory and the masses have decided that it was he who was the rebel. Louis cannot be judged. He is already condemned, or we have no republic. To propose now that we begin to try Louis XVI would be equivalent to retracing our steps to royal or constitutional despotism. This is a counter-revolutionary idea, for it means nothing more nor less than to indict the Revolution itself. In fact, if it is still possible to make Louis the object of a trial, it is also possible he may be acquitted. He may be not guilty, nay, even more: it may be assumed, before the sentence is pronounced, that he has committed no crime. But if Louis may be declared guiltless, if Louis may go free of punishment, what will then become of the Revolution? If Louis is guiltless, all the defenders ​of freedom are liars, all those faithful to the King, all the counter-revolutionaries, are friends of truth and the defenders of oppressed innocence, all the manifestoes, pamphlets and intrigues of foreign courts, all these are merely legitimate and proper articles of complaint. In this case, the arrest of Louis was an injustice, an act of oppression, and the people's committees of Paris, all the patriots of France, these are the true guilty ones. …
The trial of Louis XVI is an appeal of royalty to the Constituent Assembly. In affording an audience to the lawyer of Louis XVI you are opening the struggle of despotism against liberty, you are organizing the right of calumny and blasphemy against the Republic. For, the right to defend the overthrown despot involves also the right to say anything in his favor that may be desired. You are giving a new lease of life to all the defeated factions; you encourage them, you inspire the defeated monarchism with new energy, you recognize the right to take sides for or against the King without let or hindrance. Nothing is more legitimate, more just, than that now all the defenders of royalty should appear on this platform to state their case. What sort of a republic is that whose very founders themselves summon the enemies of this form of government to defend themselves in the cradle of the Republic itself? …
All the bloodthirsty hordes of foreign despotism ​are ready to wage war against us in the name of Louis XVI. From the recesses of his prison Louis fights us, and yet we still ask whether he is guilty, we still ask whether he may be treated as an enemy? I do not believe that the Republic is a word that can be trifled with, I do not believe that the Republic exists to be made sport of. The thing that is now being done is the best method of restoring the monarchy.
The Constitution is invoked in defense of Louis. I shall not take up all the arguments; let me simply say: to be sure, the Constitution forbids everything you have done so far. Be sure of that, in fact, you have no right to hold the King a prisoner; on the other hand, he has the right to demand his immediate liberation, not to mention compensation. The Constitution condemns you! Act accordingly, gentlemen; prostrate yourselves before Louis XVI and crave his mercy!
I, for my part, would be ashamed to trifle with these hairsplitting distinctions; I should leave this mode of treatment to the courts in London, Vienna and Berlin. Such distinctions are a scandal.
It is said this trial is a tremendous business, one requiring judicious and thoughtful treatment. But it is you who are giving it this great importance. In fact, it is you who have made a big thing of it, only you! What is so important about it? Are there any difficulties? No! Is it the personality ​involved? In the eyes of freedom there is no smaller individual. In the eyes of humanity there is none more reprehensible. This man can inspire only those with respect who stand even lower than he. Is it the necessity of the result, the fear of the result? Very well then, we should have only one more reason to accelerate the result. After all, what is the reason for these eternal discussions, and for your doubts? Are you afraid of injuring the feelings of the people? Know then, that the people fear nothing else than the cowardice and ambition of their representatives! The people are not a horde of slaves who are stupidly chained to the tyrant whom they themselves have overthrown. You urge that we consider public opinion, the general opinion? If this public opinion is mistaken, it is for you to correct it. Do you fear the kings allied against you? If you wish them to defeat you, you have only to give them the impression that you fear them. To be sure of suffering defeat, you need only to show some respect to the accomplices, the allies, of the fallen kings! Are you perhaps afraid of the foreign nations? If so, you are merely giving evidence of your belief in the existence of an innate affection for tyranny. What is the cause of your ambition to liberate mankind? How can you explain the contradiction involved in your belief that the nations who were not horrified at the proclamation of the Rights of Man would be shocked by the punishment of one of the greatest ​criminals? And do you perhaps fear the judgment of posterity? No doubt, posterity will marvel. But posterity will marvel at our weakness, at our prejudices, and at our indecision. …
Louis must die in order that the nation may live. In more peaceful times, once we have secured respect and have consolidated ourselves within and without, it might be possible for us to consider generous proposals. But to-day, when we are refused our freedom; to-day, when, after so many bloody struggles, the severity of the law as yet assails only the unhappy; to-day, when it is still possible for the crimes of tyranny to be made a subject of discussion; on such a day there can be no thought of mercy; at such a moment the people cries for vengeance. I request you to come to a decision at once concerning the fate of Louis. His wife will be handed over to the courts, together with all persons in any way connected with her. His son will remain under surveillance in the Temple until foreign and domestic peace has been assured. Louis XVI must at once be proclaimed by the National Assembly a traitor to the nation, a criminal against mankind, and the judgment must be carried out on the same square on which the great martyrs of freedom died on August 10.
—Speech delivered December 3, 1792.