루이 16세의 재판: 혁명권과 합법성

Abstract

There was a great deal of controversy surrounding the trial of Louis XVI, especially within National Convention at every stage of the trial (whether or not to prosecute, indictment, interrogation and pleading, and voting on guilt, sentence, ratification of the people, reprieve, etc.). In terms of ''fall of the monarchy’, the most noteworthy part is the debate over whether the king will be tried or not. This is because the ‘Constitution of 1791’ stipulated the king’s sacred inviolability, that is, the privilege of immunity. The series of debates surrounding the trial of Louis XVI give us two major implications in relation to our problem. One is the historical significance of the royal trial. In the traditional era, usurpation and assassination of kings were common events in Europe, but such expulsion of the monarch strengthened rather than undermined the historical basis and legitimacy of the monarchy. For the monarchy to formally end, an alternative political order had to be imagined, and the king’s trial was a rite of passage that must be passed for this purpose. It is not the assassination like the manner of Shakespearian tragedies which secretly kill the kings, but the king’s trial and execution carried out by the new legitimate power under the name of the popular sovereignty in broad daylight in the centre of the capital city while the crowds are gathering, that historically ended the rule of monarchs. In fact, after the execution of Louis XVI, the monarchs continued to reign, but the mystery, splendor, and awe enjoyed by the monarchy have virtually disappeared. The other is that although National Convention tried to give the royal trial a form of lawfulness in its own way, and in fact, the trial was generally conducted in the manner suggested by the ‘Girondins’, the most influential faction at the beginning of the trial, paradoxically, the argument of Saint-Just, who insisted on the immediate execution of the king without a trial, rather defined the main line of the Louis XVI trial. “On ne peut point regner innocemment.” Accepting the premises of the social contract and popular sovereignty, “Tout roi est un rebelle et un usurpateur.” Thus the events of August 10, 1792 effectively determined the fate of the monarchy. The right to revolution lay at the foundation of the legitimacy of the modern bourgeois order. (Seoul National University / kchoi7@snu.ac.kr)