Louis XVI Is Executed in Paris

On the morning of 21 January 1793, the deposed king Louis XVI was taken from the Temple Prison to the Place de la Revolution in Paris to be executed. On 15 January, the National Convention had concluded a prolonged trial by finding him guilty of conspiring against public liberty and the security of the state. A further roll-call vote, completed on 17 January, sealed his fate: 361 of the 721 deputies voting chose death without conditions, a majority of a single vote. Requests by the former monarch for a three-day delay were denied, leaving him only hours to bid farewell to his family and receive spiritual counsel from an Irish priest, Henry Essex Edgeworth.

The journey to the scaffold reflected the tense atmosphere gripping the French capital. Under heavy mounted escort, Louis traveled in a closed carriage rather than the usual open cart, moving through streets lined with armed National Guardsmen. An attempted rescue organised by the royalist Baron de Batz along the route came to nothing when only a handful of his supporters turned up, and the convoy continued unhindered toward the public square.