ON the 4th of August a criminal was beheaded, in the _Place de Grêve_. I
did not see the execution, because, as the hour is never specified, I
might have waited many hours in a crowd, from which there is no
extricating one's self. I was there immediately after, and saw the
machine, which was just going to be taken away. I went into a
coffee-house and made a drawing, which is here engraven. It is called
_la Guillotine_, from the name of the person who first brought it into
use in Paris: that at _Lisle_ is called _le Louison_, for a similar
reason. In English it is termed a maiden.[10]
[Note 10: Mr. Pennant, in the second volume of his Tour in Scotland,
has given a long account of such a machine, from which the following
particulars are taken. "It was confined to the limits of the forest of
Hardwick, or the eighteen towns and hamlets within its precincts. The
execution was generally at Halifax; Twenty five criminals suffered
during the reign of Queen Elizabeth; the records before that time were
lost. Twelve more were executed between 1623 and 1650, after which it is
supposed the privilege was no more exerted.----This machine is now
destroyed, but there is one of the same kind, in a room under the
Parliament house, at Edinburgh, where it was introduced by the Regent
Morton, who took a model of it as he passed through Halifax, and at
length suffered by it himself. It is in form of a painters easel, and
about ten feet high: at four feet from the bottom is a cross-bar, on
which the felon laid his head, which was kept down by another placed
above. In the inner edges of the frame are grooves; in these is placed a
sharp axe, with a vast weight of lead, supported at the summit by a peg;
to that peg is fastened a cord, which the executioner cutting, the axe
falls, and beheads the criminal. If he was condemned for stealing a
horse or a cow, the string was tied to the beast, which pulled out the
peg and became the executioner."]
I have seen the following seven engravings of such an instrument. The
most ancient is engraven on wood, merely outlines, and very badly drawn;
it is in _Petrus de Natalibus Catalogus Sanctorum, 1510_.
There was a German translation of some of _Petrarch's_ Works, published
in 1520; this contains an engraving in wood, representing an execution,
with a great number of figures, correctly drawn.
_Aldegrever_, in 1553, published another print on this subject.
The fourth is in _Achillis Bocchii Quæstiones Symbolicæ_, 1550.
There is one in _Cats's_ Dutch Emblems, 1650.
And the two last are in _Golfrieds's_ Historical Chronicles, in German,
folio, 1674. These five last are engraven on copper.
In all these representations the axe is either straight or semicircular,
but always horizontal. The sloping position of the French axe appears to
be the best calculated for celerity.
Machines of this kind are at present made use of for executions
throughout all France, and criminals are put to death in no other
manner.
The following is the account of an execution, which I had from an
eye-witness.
The crowd began to assemble at ten in the morning, and waited, exposed
to the intense heat of the sun in the middle of July, till four in the
afternoon, when the criminals, a Marquis and a Priest, were brought, in
two coaches; they were condemned for having forged _assignats_.
The Marquis ascended the scaffold first; he was as pale as if he had
already been dead, and he endeavoured to hide his face, by pulling his
hair over it; there were two executioners, dressed in black, on the
scaffold, one of which immediately tied a plank of about 18 inches
broad, and an inch thick, to the body of the Marquis, as he stood
upright, fastening it about the arms, the belly, and the legs; this
plank was about four feet long, and came almost up to his chin; a priest
who attended, then applied a crucifix to his mouth, and the two
executioners directly laid him on his belly on the bench, lifted up the
upper part of the board which was to receive his neck, adjusted his
head properly, then shut the board and pulled the string which is
fastened to the peg at the top of the machine, which lifted up a latch,
and down came the axe; the head was off in a moment, and fell into a
basket which was ready to receive it, the executioner took it out and
held it up by the hair to show the populace, and then put it into
another basket along with the body: very little blood had issued as yet.
The Priest was now taken out of the coach, from which he might have seen
his companion suffer; the bloody axe was hoisted up and he underwent the
same operation exactly. Each of these executions lasted about a minute
in all, from the moment of the criminal's ascending the scaffold to that
of the body's being taken away. It was now seen that the body of the
Marquis made such a violent expiration that the belly raised the lid of
the basket it was in, and the blood rushed out of the great arteries in
torrents.
The windows of the _Place de Grêve_ were, as usual on such occasions,
filled with ladies.[11] Many persons were performing on violins, and
trumpets, in order to pass the time away, and to relieve the tediousness
of expectation.
[Note 11: Mrs. Robinson tells me, that when she was at Paris, a few
years ago, her _valet de place_, came early one morning, informing her
there would be a _grand spectacle_, and wanted to know if he should hire
a place for her. This superb spectacle was no other than the execution
of two murderers, who were to be broken alive on the wheel, in the Place
de Grêve, on that day. She however says, that she declined going.]
I have on several other days seen felons sitting on stools on this
scaffold, with their hands tied, and their arms and bodies fastened to a
stake by a girth, bareheaded, with an inscription over their heads,
specifying their crimes and punishment; they are generally thus exposed
during five or fix hours, and then sent to prison, or to the gallies
according to the sentence.