Part 20 (1/2)
Some authorities say his last words were ”We will go to Jerusalem.”
LOUIS XIII. (son of Henry IV. and Marie de Medicis), 1601-1643. ”_Well, my G.o.d, I consent with all my heart_,” to his physician who told him he had but two hours to live.
LOUIS XIV. (surnamed LE GRAND, often called LOUIS QUATORZE, the most magnificent of the Bourbon Kings), 1638-1715. ”Why weep ye? Did you think I should live forever?” then after a pause, ”_I thought dying had been harder._” Some say his last words were: ”O G.o.d, come to mine aid! O Lord, make haste to help me!”
On Sunday, August 31, towards eleven o'clock in the evening, the prayers for the dying were said for Louis XIV. He recited them himself in a louder voice than any of the spectators; and seemed still more majestic on his death-bed than on his throne. When the prayers were ended he recognized Cardinal de Rohan and said to him, ”These are the graces of the Church.” Several times he repeated: ”_Nunc et in hora mortis._” Then he said, ”O G.o.d, come unto mine aid; O Lord, make haste to help me.”
These were his last words. The agony was beginning. It lasted all night, and on Sunday, September 1, 1715, at a quarter past eight in the morning, Louis XIV., aged seventy-seven years lacking three days, during sixty-two of which he had been a king, yielded his great soul to G.o.d.
_Imbert de Saint-Amand._
LOUIS XV. (of France), 1710-1774. ”_Repeat those words Monsieur the almoner, repeat them_,” to Cardinal de La Roche-Aymon, who read aloud the public apology made by the sovereign to his people.
Some authorities give his last words thus: ”I have been a great sinner, doubtless, but I have ever observed Lent with a most scrupulous exactness; I have caused more than a hundred thousand ma.s.ses to be said for the repose of unhappy souls, so that I flatter myself I have not been a very bad Christian.”
A candle burning in the King's chamber, which was to be extinguished at the same moment as the life of the King, was the signal agreed on for the measures to be taken and the orders to be given as soon as he should have breathed his last. The candle was put out at two o'clock in the afternoon of May 10, 1774. Instantly a great tumult, comparable to a clap of thunder, shook the arches of Versailles. It was the crowd of courtiers leaving the antechambers of the dead man and noisily hastening to meet the new monarch.
_Imbert de Saint-Amand: ”The Last Years of Louis XV.”_
LOUIS XVI. (guillotined by a wild and bloodthirsty mob, called the French Republic, the 21st of January, 1793), 1754-1793. ”_Frenchmen, I die innocent of all the crimes which have been imputed to me. I forgive my enemies; I implore G.o.d, from the bottom of my heart, to pardon them, and not to take vengeance on the French nation for the blood about to be shed._”
He was proceeding, when Santerre, who was on horseback near the scaffold, made a signal for the drums to beat, when the a.s.sistants seized the victim, and the horrid murder was completed.
When the king's head was severed from the body, one of the executioners held it up by the hair, dancing at the same time around the scaffold, with the most savage exultation.
_Contemporary History of the French Revolution._
LOUIS XVII. (second son of Louis XVI. He became dauphin at the death of an elder brother in 1789, and was recognized as king in January, 1793, by the French royalists and several foreign courts, but he was closely confined by the Jacobins. The cruel treatment which he received in prison hastened his death), 1785-1795. ”_I have something to tell you._”
LOUIS XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier), 1755-1824. ”_A King should die standing._”
LOUISE (Auguste Wilhelmine Amelie, Queen of Prussia), 1776-1810. ”_I am a Queen, but have no power to move my arms._”
LOVAT (Lord Fraser of Lovat, Scottish Jacobite conspirator. In the rebellion of 1745 he was detected in treasonable acts against King George, for which he was executed), about 1666-1747.
He was beheaded on Tower Hill. On reaching the scaffold, he asked for the executioner, and presented him with a purse containing ten guineas.
He then asked to see the axe, felt its edge, and said he thought it would do. Next he looked at his coffin, on which was inscribed:
SIMON, DOMINUS FRASER DE LOVAT.
Decollat April 9, 1747 aetat suae 80.
After repeating some lines from Horace, and next from Ovid, he prayed, then bade adieu to his solicitor and agent in Scotland; finally the executioner completed his work, the head falling from the body. Lord Lovat was the last person beheaded in England.
_Andrews: ”Bygone Punishments.”_