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Portrait of President George Washington by Rembrandt Peale; National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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A ship that arrived in Dover, England, on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 22, 1793, brought some bloody news from France.
The Wednesday edition of the London Evening Mail told the story in detail. It carried a simple headline: "Execution of Louis XVI."
"At six o'clock on Monday morning, the King went to take a farewell of the Queen and Royal Family," said the story. "After staying with them some time, and taking a very affectionate farewell of them, the King descended from the tower of the Temple, and entered the Mayor's carriage, with his confessor and two Members of the Municipality, and passed slowly along the boulevards which led from the Temple to the place of execution."
"Louis mounted the scaffold with composure, and that modest intrepidity peculiar to oppressed innocence, the trumpets sounding and the drums beating during the whole time," it said.
"He made a sign of wishing to harangue the multitude, when the drums ceased, and Louis spoke these few words. 'I die innocent; I pardon my enemies; I only sanctioned upon compulsion the Civil Constitution of the Clergy' —