[Note 31: On the 28th of March, 1757, _Damiens_, who stabbed _Lewis_
XV. was executed in the _Place de Grêve_, four horses were to pull his
arms and legs from his body: they were fifty minutes pulling in vain,
and at last his joints were obliged to be cut: he supported these
torments patiently, and expired whilst the tendons of his shoulders were
cutting, though he was living after his legs and thighs had been torn
from his body; his right hand had previously been cut off. I was in
Paris in 1768, and then, and at various times since have been assured by
eye-witnesses, that almost all the windows of the square where the
execution was performed were hired by ladies, at from two to ten _louis_
each.
Mr. Thicknesse in his "_Year's journey through France and Part of
Spain_," in a letter dated _Dijon_,_ in Burgundy_, 1776, mentions a man
whom he saw broke alive on the wheel by, "the executioner and _his
mother_, who assisted at this horrid business, these both seemed to
enjoy the deadly office."
I have formerly given an account of the Spanish ladies enjoying the
barbarities of the bull-fights.]