He was brought to trial before the Convention
in December, 1792, and condemned to death by a vote of 387 to 334. With
the majority voted the king's own cousin, the duke of Orleans, an
enthusiastic radical who had assumed the name of Citizen Philippe
Egalite (Equality). On 21 January, 1793, Louis XVI was beheaded near
the overthrown statue of his voluptuous predecessor Louis XV in the
Place de la Revolution (now called the Place de la Concorde). The
unruffled dignity with which he met death was the finest act of his
reign.
[Sidenote: Military Successes]
Meanwhile the tide of Austrian and Prussian invasion had been rolling
away from France. After Valmy, Dumouriez had pursued the retreating
foreigners across the Rhine and had carried the war into the Austrian
Netherlands, where a large party regarded the French as deliverers.
Dumouriez entered Brussels without serious resistance, and was speedily
master of the whole country. It seemed as though the French would have
an easy task in delivering the peoples of Europe from their old regime.
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