A king is put on trial by his own people. And in his final moments, he turns to an Irishman.

In January 1793, Louis XVI stood before the National Convention, accused not just of crimes, but of betraying the nation itself.

What followed was one of the most extraordinary political moments in modern history. A trial where the verdict seemed inevitable, but the arguments were anything but. Where law, revolution and survival collided in full view of the world.

And where the final decision, whether the king should live or die, came down to a vote that was far closer than most people realise.

At the centre of it all is a quieter, stranger story. In his final hours, the King of France placed his trust not in a minister, a nobleman or even a fellow Frenchman, but in Henry Essex Edgeworth the foreign priest who would hear his confession, accompany him to the scaffold, and hold his hand at the very end.

This episode tells the story of the trial, the execution, and the Irishman who stood beside the king as the blade fell.

In this episode:

• The context of the French Revolution, Louis XVI's attempts to be a constitutional monarch, before fleeing for the border.
• Why the revolutionaries debated whether Louis XVI should be tried at all 
•  The arguments of Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
•  The discovery of the armoire de fer and the evidence against the king 
•  How the trial unfolded inside the National Convention 
•  The vote on life or death and how close it really was 
•  The king’s final hours, final words, and final walk to the scaffold 
•  The role of Henry Essex Edgeworth, the Irishman at the centre of the story 
•  What the execution meant for France and Europe

Music

Gnossiennes by Erik Satie, performed by Chase Coleman
 Recording sourced from IMSLP under Creative Commons licence

 Explore more stories from French history on the website: https://letrangerpodcast.com/ 
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