against the heretics who attempted to leave the country, as well as against those who abetted them. All the Protestant émigrés, and those reputed as such, were threatened with forfeiture when they returned to France after a brief delay, and a reward of 1,000 livres was promised to whoever could give information of or prevent a design of emigration. I hasten to add that such excesses of fanaticism were posterior to my ancestor's resolve to accept the office of executioner of Paris; otherwise I have no doubt he would have remained in Rouen. Moreover, these awful laws and posthumous penalties were little more than legal fictions, being enacted rather to intimidate than to be carried out. I find no trace of such sentences having been executed, in the papers left by Sanson de Longval. If real persecutions were devised at the time against the Protestants, it was in the provinces, not in Paris.

On his arrival, Sanson was disagreeably impressed by having to put up at the House of Pillory, or, as the people called it, the Executioner's Mansion. This abode, by no means a cheerful one, was a dark, octagonal construction, over which was placed a revolving cage, the whole edifice terminating in a sharp steeple. Before the door was a cross, at the foot of which bankrupts came to declare that they abandoned their property, after which they received a green cap from the executioner's hands. Around the house were shops which the executioner rented; and adjoining these were a stable and a kind of shed, under which the bodies of those who perished by the executioner's hand were deposited for a night.

During his short stay at the House of Pillory, my ancestor acquired a taste for anatomy; and his studies were not fruitless, for he consigned to writing many curious observations on the muscular system, and I have still some prescriptions of his for diseases of the joints. The study of anatomy and the manipulation of certain remedies were perpetuated in our family. None among us abstained from this practice; and the reader will be astonished at the enumeration, in the sequel of the present work, of the cures of patients who came to us for relief.

Sanson de Longval soon had enough of his official residence; and, as no law compelled him to live there, he sought suitable quarters in some remote part of Paris. The place now occupied by a part of the Faubourg Poissonnière was then an almost deserted spot called New France. The only buildings it contained was the convent of Saint Vincent de Paul, and a modest church patronised by St. Anne. Nowadays the church has been turned into a beershop, and the convent into a prison. Charles Sanson had a house erected near the Church of St. Anne, after letting the Executioner's Mansion for 600 livres a large sum for the time.

The first years of Charles Sanson de Longval's residence in Paris were marked by no particularly interesting occurrence until the trial and execution of Madame Tiquet. I find many a page of blood in the annals of my family before reaching the account of this remarkable case; but even crime, it must be admitted, has its aristocracy, and I should far less interest my

readers by relating to them the execution of some obscure criminal than by the authentic details I am in a position to give as to a young woman whose fate engrossed the attention of the whole of Paris towards the end of the seventeenth century. Her trial, of which the termination was far more tragic, produced in those days as much sensation as that of Mdme. Lafarge in our time. For the sake of accuracy, I must, however, mention a few executions superintended by Charles Sanson. The culprits were: In 1685, Claude Vautier, broken on the wheel for theft and murder. In 1688, Jean Nouis fils, for the same crime. In 1689, François Mannequin, for false evidence: he was only one-and-twenty years of age, and during his trial he pretended that he was only seventeen, hoping to soften his judges. In 1690, Gabrielle Henry, wife of Jacques Piedeseigle, assistant major of Count de Chamilly, convicted of murder. In 1691, Urbaine Attibard, wife of Pierre Barrois, aged thirty-five, who, having poisoned her husband, was sentenced to amende honorable, to have her fist struck off, and to be hanged; her body to be burnt, and her ashes to be scattered to the wind. And lastly, Claire Lermenet, wife of Michel Cloqueteur, servant of M. de Breteuil, put to death, after horrible tortures, for common theft.

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CHAPTER IV.

TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF MDME. TIQUET.

IN the first months of the year 1677 a strange event produced a profound sensation throughout Paris, and soon became the leading topic of conversation. A wellknown and esteemed magistrate, M. Tiquet, escaped, as if by miracle, from a conspiracy against his life. After being fired upon by a number of murderers placed in ambush near his house, he fell insensible on the pavement, and but for the prompt action of his valet, who had heard the report of firearms, and rushed out to his master's help, he would probably have been despatched.

Much surprise was evinced when it became known that M. Tiquet, mindless of his desperate plight, had obstinately refused to be taken to his own house, and had preferred the hospitality of one of his lady friends, Mdme. de Villemur, to that of his own mansion, where, however, he knew that he could command the cares of his wife and of the two children he had had by her. This conduct, which, to say the least, was singular, might have given birth to rather unfavourable comments on the morality of the councillor, if far graver rumours had not furnished a quite different explanation. It was also

said that Mdme. Tiquet, on hearing of the crime, had gone to Mdme. de Villemur's house to see her husband; but that access to him had been denied her; and further, that when the magistrate sent to him to inquire into the crime had questioned him, M. Tiquet answered that, to his knowledge, the only enemy he had was his wife.

This was enough to awaken the curiosity of a population at all times greedy of scandal and domestic mysteries. The history of M. and Mdme. Tiquet was soon in every mouth. It ran thus: Angélique Carlier (Mdme. Tiquet) came from Metz, where she was born in 1657. Her father was a rich printer and bookseller; and at his death he left a fortune of 80,000l. to be divided between his daughter and her brother. The latter had been her only guardian. When she appeared in society, she was an accomplished person, and possessed great powers of fascination. Her beauty was striking, her education left nothing to be desired; in fact, her destiny promised to be one of unusual brilliancy. She was soon sought by a considerable number of suitors, among whom were rich and powerful men. But, either from her inability to make a choice, or because love was unknown to her heart, Angélique took a long time before she came to a decision. Her hesitation became favourable to M. Tiquet, a magistrate, who had come forward in the ranks of her admirers: his position as a councillor of Parliament tickled the girl's vanity, and she at length selected him. The plebeian name of Pierre Tiquet sufficiently testified that he owed his position as a magistrate to his own talents rather than to his birth; but at that