This is the new name given to the _Place de Louis XV_. After the
abolition of royalty in France, it was called the _Place de la
Révolution_. When the reign of terror ceased, by the fall of
Robespierre, it obtained its present appellation, which forms a
strong contrast to the number of victims that have here been
sacrificed to the demon of faction.
This square, which is seven hundred and eighty feet in length by six
hundred and thirty in breadth, was planned after the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, and finished in 1763. It forms a parallelogram
with its angles cut off, which are surrounded by ditches, guarded by
balustrades, breast high. To repair from the _Tuileries_ to the
_Champs Elysées_, you cross it in a straight line from east to west,
and from north to south, to proceed from the _Rue de la Concorde
(ci-devant Rue Royale)_ to the _Pont de la Concorde (ci-devant
Pont de Louis XVI.)_
Near the intersection of these roads stood the equestrian statue in
bronze of Lewis XV, which caught the eye in a direct line with the
centre of the grand alley of the garden of the _Tuileries_. It has
since been replaced by a statue of Liberty. This colossal figure was
removed a few days ago, and, by all accounts, will not be re-erected.
The north part of this square, the only one that is occupied by
buildings, presents, on each side of the _Rue de la Concorde_, two
edifices, each two hundred and forty-eight feet in front, decorated
with insulated columns of the Corinthian order, to the number of
twelve, and terminated by two pavilions, with six columns, crowned by
a pediment. On the ground-floor of these edifices, one of which, that
next the _Tuileries_, was formerly the _Garde-Meuble de la Couronne_,
are arcades that form a gallery, in like manner as the colonnade
above, the cornice of which is surmounted by a balustrade. I have
been thus particular in describing this façade, in order to enable
you to judge of the charming effect which it must produce, when
illuminated with thousands of lamps on the occasion of the grand
_fête_ in honour of peace, which takes place to-morrow.
It was in the right hand corner of this square, as you come out of
the garden of the _Tuileries_ by the centre issue, that the terrible
guillotine was erected. From the window of a friend's room, where I
am now writing, I behold the very spot which has so often been
drenched with the mixed blood of princes, poets, legislators,
philosophers, and plebeians. On that spot too fell the head of one of
the most powerful monarchs in Europe.
I have heard much regret expressed respecting this execution; I have
witnessed much lamentation excited by it both in England and France;
but I question whether any of those loyal subjects, who deserted
their king when they saw him in danger, will ever manifest the
sincere affection, the poignant sensibility of DOMINIQUE SARRÈDE.
To follow Henry IV to the battle of Ivry in 1533, SARRÈDE had his
wounded leg cut off, in order that he might be enabled to sit on
horseback. This was not all. His attachment to his royal master was
so great, that, in passing through the _Rue de la Ferronnerie_ two
days after the assassination of that prince, and surveying the fatal
place where it had been committed, he was so overcome by grief, that
he fell almost dead on the spot, and actually expired the next
morning. I question, I say, whether any one of those emigrants, who
made so officious a display of their zeal, when they knew it to be
unavailing, will ever moisten with a single tear the small space of
earth stained with the blood of their unfortunate monarch.
Since I have been in Paris, I have met with a person of great
respectability, totally unconnected with politics, who was present at
several of those executions: at first he attended them from
curiosity, which soon degenerated into habit, and at last became an
occupation. He successively beheld the death of Charlotte Corday,
Madame Roland, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Madame Elizabeth,
Philippe Egalité, Madame du Barry, Danton, Robespierre, Couthon, St.
Just, Henriot, Fouquier-Tinville, _cum mullis aliis_, too numerous to
mention.
Among other particulars, this person informed me that Lewis XVI
struggled much, by which the fatal instrument cut through the back of
his head, and severed his jaw: the queen was more resigned; on the
scaffold, she even apologized to Samson, the executioner in chief,
for treading accidentally on his toe. Madame Roland met her fate with
the calm heroism of a Roman matron. Charlotte Corday died with a
serene and dignified countenance; one of the executioners having
seized her head when it fell, and given it several slaps, this base
act of cowardice raised a general murmur among the people.
As to Robespierre, no sooner had he ascended the scaffold, amid the
vociferous acclamations of the joyful multitude, than the executioner
tore off the dirty bandage in which his wounded head was enveloped
and which partlv concealed his pale and ferocious visage. This made
the wretch roar like a wild beast. His under jaw then falling from
the upper, and streams of blood gushing from the wound, gave him the
most ghastly appearance that can be imagined. When the national
razor, as the guillotine was called by his partisans, severed
Robespierre's head from his body; and the executioner, taking it by
the hair, held it up to the view of the spectators, the plaudits
lasted for twenty minutes. Couthon, St. Just, and Henriot, his
heralds of murder, who were placed in the same cart with himself,
next paid the debt of their crimes. They were much disfigured, and
the last had lost an eye. Twenty-two persons were guillotined at the
same time with Robespierre, all of them his satellites. The next day,
seventy members of the commune, and the day following twelve others,
shared the fate of their atrocious leader, who, not many hours
before, was styled the virtuous and incorruptible patriot.
You may, probably, imagine that, whatever dispatch might be employed,
the execution of seventy persons, would demand a rather considerable
portion of time, an hour and a half, or two hours, for instance. But,
how wide of the mark! Samson, the executioner of Paris, worked the
guillotine with such astonishing quickness, that, including the
preparatives of the punishment, he has been known to cut off no less
than forty-five heads, the one after the other, in the short space of
fifteen minutes; consequently, at this expeditious rate of three
heads in one minute it required no more than twenty-three minutes and
twenty seconds to decapitate seventy persons.
Guillotin, the physician, who invented or rather improved this
machine, which is called after his name with a feminine termination,
is said to have been a man of humanity; and, on that principle alone,
he recommended the use of it, from the idea of saving from painful
sensations criminals condemned to die. Seeing the abuse made of it,
from the facility which it afforded of dispatching several persons in
a few minutes, he took the circumstance so much to heart that grief
speedily shortened his existence.
According to Robespierre, however, the axe of the guillotine did not
do sufficient execution. One of his satellites announced to him the
invention of an instrument which struck off nine heads at once: the
discovery pleased him, and he caused several trials of this new
machine to be made at _Bicêtre_. It did not answer; but human nature
gained nothing by its failure. Instead of half a dozen victims a day,
Robespierre wished to have daily fifty or sixty, or more; and he was
but too well obeyed. Not only had he his own private lists of
proscription; but all his creatures, from the president of the
revolutionary tribunal down to the under-jailers, had similar lists;
and the _almanac royal_, or French court calendar, was converted into
one by himself.
The inhabitants of the streets through which the unfortunate
sufferers were carried, wearied at length by the daily sight of so
melancholy a spectacle, ventured to utter complaints. Robespierre, no
less suspicious than cruel, was alarmed, and, dreading an
insurrection, removed the scene of slaughter. The scaffold was
erected on the _Place de la Bastille_: but the inhabitants of this
quarter also murmured, and the guillotine was transferred to the
_Barrière St. Antoine_.
Had not this modern Nero been cut off in the midst of his cruelties,
it is impossible to say where he would have stopped. Being one day
asked the question, he coolly answered: "The generation which has
witnessed the old _règime_, will always regret it. Every individual
who was more than fifteen in 1789, must be put to death: this is the
only way to consolidate the revolution."
It was the same in the departments as in Paris. Every where blood ran
in streams. In all the principal towns the guillotine was rendered
permanent, in order, as Robespierre expressed himself, to _regenerate
the nation_. If this sanguinary monster did not intend to "wade
through slaughter to a throne," it is certain at least that he "shut
the gates of mercy on mankind."
But what cannot fail to excite your astonishment and that of every
thinking person, is, that, in the midst of these executions, in the
midst of these convulsions of the state, in the midst of these
struggles for power, in the midst of these outcries against the
despots of the day, in the midst of famine even, not artificial, but
real; in short, in the midst of an accumulation of horrors almost
unexampled, the fiddle and tambourin never ceased. Galas, concerts,
and balls were given daily in incredible numbers; and no less than
from fifteen to twenty theatres, besides several, other places of
public entertainment, were constantly open, and almost as constantly
filled.
P. S. I am this moment informed of the arrival of Lord Cornwallis.
[Footnote 1: The ratio between the English fathom and the French
toise, as determined between the first astronomers of both countries,
is as 72 to 76.734.]