tion.[1] Edgeworth accepted the mission, and in a letter to a friend in England, dated 21st December 1792, explained that this was his reason for remaining in France. "I prepare myself," he added, "for death, for I am convinced that popular rage will not allow me to survive one hour after that tragic end." He fully expected, indeed, to be torn to pieces by the mob, and he made his will before leaving his mother and sister (the former ignorant of his danger) for the Temple. Rigidly searched at the gate, lest he should carry poison for the King, Edgeworth, bursting into tears, fell at Louis's feet. Louis read him his will, and Edgeworth, through a glass door, heard the piercing sobs at the King's parting with his family. He remained with the royal prisoner till ten at night, took some hours' rest in an ante-room, administered the sacrament at five next morning, dissuaded the King from another interview with his family, and rode with him to the scaffold. As two gendarmes seated opposite in the hackney coach made private conversation impossible, Edgeworth offered his breviary to the King, and recited with him alternate verses of suitable psalms. He had no recollection of exclaiming, as the axe fell, "Fils de St. Louis, montez au ciel," and Lacretelle half confesses to having invented this for a report in a Paris newspaper. Edgeworth did, however, say, when the King, averse to being
- ↑ Hébert, king's confessor at the Tuileries, was guillotined in 1794.
