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Maintaining that the trial and public execution of Louis XVI was an absolutely essential part of the French Revolution, Walzer discusses two types of regicide: the first, committed by would-be kings or their agents, left the monarchy's mystique and divine right intact, while the second was a revolutionary act intended to destroy it completely.
Walzer defends the trial and execution of Louis XVI as necessary, since it not only tried to destroy the monarchy's mystique and divine right, but also required the deputies to fully explain their guiding philosophies and applied the rules of judicial process to establish equality before the law.
New to this edition is an appendix containing "Revolutionary Justice," Ferenc Feher's classic rebuttal to Walzer's thesis, and Walzer's response, "The King's Trial and the Political Culture of the Revolution."
— The New Republic
Preface to the Morningside Edition
Preface to the Original Edition
Translator's Preface
Regicide and Revolution
1. Two Kinds of Regicide
2. The Old Regime
3. The King and the Law
4. The Revolutionary Argument
5. A Defense of the Trial and Execution of Louis XVI
The Speeches
1. Maihle: 7 November 1792
2. Morisson: 13 November 1792
3. Saint-Just: 13 November 1792
4. Paine: 21 November 1792
5. Robespierre: 3 December 1792
6. Condorcet: 3 December 1792
7. Marat: 3 December 1792
8. Saint-Just: 27 December 1792
9. Robespierrre: 28 December 1792
10. Vergniaud: 31 December 1792
11. Paine: 7 January 1793
Appendix
1. Revolutionary Justice by Ferenc Feher
2. The Kind's Trial and the Political Culture of the Revolution by Michael Walzer
3. Excerpts from the Constitution of 1791
Index of Names