Henry Essex Edgeworth
Henry Essex Edgeworth was born in 1745 in Edgeworthstown, County Longford, Ireland, the son of the rector of Edgeworthstown. When he was four, his father converted to Roman Catholicism, and immigrated to Toulouse taking the family with him. In 1769 he went to Paris to train to be a priest.
When the Archbishop of Paris left he gave Edgeworth all of his powers. He became confessor to the Princes Elizabeth sister of the King Louis XVI in 1791. After the king was sentenced to death he was able to celebrate mass with him. He was there in the King’s last minutes on the scaffold.
He continued to see Madame Elizabeth only leaving France in 1796 when she was executed and his own mother had died. When he escaped to England dressed in ordinary clothes and then unto Scotland where he passed Elizabeth’s last message to her brother the future King Charles X. He was offered a pension for life from William Pitt but he refused.
He was to die of a fever whilst striving to help French prisoners in 1807 in Russia.
Abbe Edgeworth who attended to the King in his last hours including the scaffold. Before he is taken to his execution he reports on a discussion he had with the King over who is responsible for the King’s pleasant plight. As published in A Journal of the Terror, The Folio Society, London (1955) p147
The conversation then changed to the subject of the Duke of Orléans. “What have I ever done to my cousin” , said the King to me, “that he should seek my downfall? … But after all, he is more to be pitied than I. My position is tragic, no doubt, but most certainly I would not change it for his.”
Abbe Edgeworth who attended to the King in his last hours including the scaffold. As published in A Journal of the Terror, The Folio Society, London (1955) p157-158
As soon as the King had got out of the coach, three of the executioners surrounded him, and tried to remove his outer clothes. He pushed them away with dignity, and took off his coat himself. He also took off his collar and his shirt, and made himself ready with his own hands. The executioners, disconcerted for a moment by the King’s proud bearing, recovered themselves and surrounded him again in order to bind his hands. “What are you doing?” said the King, quickly drawing his hands back. “Binding your hands”, answered one of them. “Binding me!” said the King in a voice of indignation, “never! Do what you have been ordered, but you shall never bind me.” The executioners insisted; they spoke more loudly, and seemed about to call for help to force the King to obey.
This was the most agonizing moment of this terrible morning; one minute more, and the best of Kings would have received an outrage a thousand times worse than death, by the violence that they were going to use towards him. He seemed to fear this himself, and turning his head, seemed to be asking my advice. At first I remained silent, but when he continued to look at me, I said, with tears in my eyes, “Sire, in this new outrage I see one last resemblance between Your Majesty and the God who is about to be your reward.”
At these words he raised his eyes to heaven with an expression of unutterable sadness. “Surely”, he replied, “it needs nothing less than His example to make me submit to such an insult.” Then turning to the executioners, “Do what you will; I will drink the cup, even to the dregs.”
The steps of the scaffold were extremely steep. The King was obliged to lean on my arm, and from the difficulty they caused him, I feared that his courage was beginning to wane: but what was my astonishment when arrived at the top, he let go of me, crossed the scaffold with a firm step, silenced with a glance the fifteen or twenty drummers who had been placed directly opposite, and in a voice so loud that it could be heard as far away as the Pont-Tournant, pronounced these unforgettable words. “I die innocent of all the crimes with which I am charged. I forgive those who are guilty of my death, and I pray God that the blood which you are about to shed may never be required of France.”