48 Among Men and Horses. 



scaffold men face death boldly. Nothing astonished Sanson, 

 the hereditary headsman of France, who plied his ghastly 

 trade throughout the Reign of Terror, than the patience with 

 which his thousands of victims met their doom. Madame 

 Dubarry, the pampered mistress of Louis XV., was almost 

 the only exception. She struggled desperately with the 

 executioner and his assistants, and her frantic entreaties for 

 " one little minute more " rang in the ears of the spectators 

 for months. The learned and virtuous De Thou, the innocent 

 victim of the malice of the dying Cardinal Richelieu, insisted 

 on having his eyes bandaged when he mounted the scaffold at 

 Lyons. " Yes, gentlemen/' he said, " I own I am a coward. 

 When I think of death I shudder ; my hair stands on end ! 

 The unhappy man had better reason than he wot of to dread 

 the divorce of soul and body ; for he was terribly mangled by 

 the bungling mechanic who had replaced the regular heads- 

 man. A violent shock, as well as nervous tension, deadens 

 the sense of pain. When the highwayman Cartouche was 

 brought to the Place de Greve to expiate his countless crimes 

 on the terrible wheel, he greeted the first blow of the exe- 

 cutioner's crowbar which smashed his leg, with a howl of 

 anguish. But the second stroke on the other leg was fol- 

 lowed by a loud laugh. In reply to the confessor's surprised 

 query, Cartouche said, " I was laughing, my father, at the 

 folly and cruelty of men. They suppose they are giving me 

 prolonged torture ; but after the first blow I can feel nothing." ' 

 Motley tells us, in the Rise of the Dutch Republic, about the 

 marvellous fortitude with which Balthazar Gerard, who assas- 

 sinated the Prince of Orange, sustained the most horrible 

 tortures. ' During the intervals of repose from the rack, he 

 conversed with ease and even eloquence. The constancy in 

 suffering so astonished his judges that they believed him 

 supported by witchcraft. ... It was decreed that the 

 right hand of Gerard should be burned off with a hot iron, 

 that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers in 

 six different places, and that he should be quartered and dis- 



