The Girondins are partial to keeping the deposed king under arrest, both as a hostage and a guarantee for the future.

Members of the Commune and the most radical deputies, who will soon form the group known as the Mountain, argue for Louis's immediate execution.

The legal background of many of the deputies makes it difficult for a great number of them to accept an execution without the due process of law, and it is voted that the deposed monarch be tried before the National Convention, the organ that houses the representatives of the sovereign people.

In many ways, the former king's trial represents the trial of the monarchy by the revolution.

It is seen as if with the death of one comes the life of the other.

There are two events that had led to the trial for Louis XVI.

First, after the Battle of Valmy on September 22, 1792, General Dumouriez had negotiated with the Prussians who evacuated France.

Louis could no longer be considered a hostage or as leverage in negotiations with the invading forces.

Second, in November 1792, the armoire de fer (iron chest) incident had taken place at the Tuileries Palace, when the existence, in the king's bedroom, of the hidden safe containing compromising documents and correspondence, was revealed by François Gamain, the Versailles locksmith who had installed it.

Gamain had gone to Paris on November 20 and told Jean-Marie Roland, Girondinist Minister of the Interior, who had ordered it opened.

The resulting scandal had served to discredit the king.

Following these two events the Girondins can no longer keep the king from trial.

The deposed king had been brought from the Temple on December 11, among crowded and silent streets, to stand before the Convention and hear his indictment, an accusation of high treason and crimes against the State.

On December 26, his counsel, Raymond Desèze, delivers Louis' response to the charges, with the assistance of François Tronchet and Malesherbes.

Before the trial starts and Louis mounts his defense to the Convention, he tells his lawyers that he knows he will be found guilty and be killed, but to prepare and act as though they can win.

He is resigned to and accepts his fate before the verdict is determined, but he is willing to fight to be remembered as a good king for his people.