"You saw how slight that instrument was? It was one of the first which Guillotin made, and which he showed to private friends in a hangar in the Rue Picpus, where he lived. The invention created some little conversation among scientific men at the time, though I remember a machine in Edinburgh of a very similar construction, two hundred--well, many, many years ago--and at a breakfast which Guillotin gave he showed us the instrument, and much talk arose among us as to whether people suffered under it.
"And now I must tell you what befell the traitor who had caused all this suffering. Did he know that the poor child's death was a SENTENCE? He felt a cowardly satisfaction that with her was gone the secret of his treason. Then he began to doubt. I had MEANS to penetrate all his thoughts, as well as to know his acts. Then he became a slave to a horrible fear. He fled in abject terror to a convent. They still existed in Paris; and behind the walls of Jacobins the wretch thought himself secure. Poor fool! I had but to set one of my somnambulists to sleep. Her spirit went forth and spied the shuddering wretch in his cell. She described the street, the gate, the convent, the very dress which he wore, and which you saw to-day.
"And now THIS is what happened. In his chamber in the Rue St.
Honore, at Paris, sat a man ALONE--a man who has been maligned, a man who has been called a knave and charlatan, a man who has been persecuted even to the death, it is said, in Roman Inquisitions, forsooth, and elsewhere. Ha! ha! A man who has a mighty will.
"And looking toward the Jacobins Convent (of which, from his chamber, he could see the spires and trees), this man WILLED. And it was not yet dawn. And he willed; and one who was lying in his cell in the convent of Jacobins, awake and shuddering with terror for a crime which he had committed, fell asleep.
"But though he was asleep his eyes were open.
"And after tossing and writhing, and clinging to the pallet, and saying 'No, I will not go,' he rose up and donned his clothes--a gray coat, a vest of white pique, black satin small-clothes, ribbed silk stockings, and a white stock with a steel buckle; and he arranged his hair, and he tied his queue, all the while being in that strange somnolence which walks, which moves, which FLIES sometimes, which sees, which is indifferent to pain, which OBEYS.
And he put on his hat, and he went forth from his cell: and though the dawn was not yet, he trod the corridors as seeing them. And he passed into the cloister, and then into the garden where lie the ancient dead. And he came to the wicket, which Brother Jerome was opening just at the dawning. And the crowd was already waiting with their cans and bowls to receive the alms of the good brethren.
"And he passed through the crowd and went on his way, and the few people then abroad who marked him, said, 'Tiens! How very odd he looks! He looks like a man walking in his sleep!' This was said by various persons:--"By milk women, with their cans and carts, coming into the town.
"By roysterers who had been drinking at the taverns of the Barrier, for it was Mid-Lent.
"By the sergeants of the watch, who eyed him sternly as he passed near their halberds.
"But he passed on unmoved by their halberds, "Unmoved by the cries of the roysterers, "By the market women coming with their milk and eggs.
"He walked through the Rue St. Honore, I say:--"By the Rue Rambuteau, "By the Rue St. Antoine, "By the King's Chateau of the Bastille, "By the Faubourg St. Antoine.
"And he came to No. 29 in the Rue Picpus--a house which then stood between a court and garden--"That is, there was a building of one story, with a great coach door.
"Then there was a court, around which were stables, coach-houses, offices.
"Then there was a house--a two-storied house, with a perron in front.
"Behind the house was a garden--a garden of two hundred and fifty French feet in length.
"And as one hundred feet of France equal one hundred and six feet of England, this garden, my friend, equaled exactly two hundred and sixty-five feet of British measure.
"In the center of the garden was a fountain and a statue--or, to speak more correctly, two statues. One was recumbent,--a man.
Over him, saber in hand, stood a Woman.
"The man was Olofernes. The woman was Judith. From the head, from the trunk, the water gushed. It was the taste of the doctor:--was it not a droll of taste?
"At the end of the garden was the doctor's cabinet of study. My faith, a singular cabinet, and singular pictures!--"Decapitation of Charles Premier at Vitehall.
"Decapitation of Montrose at Edimbourg.
"Decapitation of Cinq Mars. When I tell you that he was a man of taste, charming!
"Through this garden, by these statues, up these stairs, went the pale figure of him who, the porter said, knew the way of the house.
He did. Turning neither right nor left, he seemed to walk THROUGH the statues, the obstacles, the flower beds, the stairs, the door, the tables, the chairs.
"In the corner of the room was THAT INSTRUMENT, which Guillotin had just invented and perfected. One day he was to lay his own head under his own ax. Peace be to his name! With him I deal not!
"In a frame of mahogany, neatly worked, was a board with a half circle in it, over which another board fitted. Above was a heavy ax, which fell--you know how. It was held up by a rope, and when this rope was untied, or cut, the steel fell.
"To the story which I now have to relate, you may give credence, or not, as you will. The sleeping man went up to that instrument.
"He laid his head in it, asleep."
"Asleep?"
"He then took a little penknife out of the pocket of his white dimity waistcoat.
"He cut the rope asleep.
