behalf of royalty on August 10. He was identified in the street by Théroigne de Méricourt, and at the instigation of that sanguinary amazon he was massacred by the mob. Durosoy's end was not less tragic. He was executed, and died with the greatest firmness. An officer named Collinot d'Augremont was his successor on the guillotine.

On August 29 Laporte, superintendent of the civil list, paid for the prodigalities of his royal master. Laporte was a venerable old man, and his death caused profound emotion among those who witnessed it. On the 31st Sellier and Desperriers were sentenced to death for issuing forged assignats, and beheaded on the same day.

The pillory had not followed the scaffold to the Place du Carrousel; it remained on the Grève. On September I my grandfather had to deal with one Jean Julien, sentenced to twelve years' imprisonment and to public exposure in the pillory, who excitedly protested that he was innocent. Hardly was he chained to the pillory than he exclaimed, Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine!' These words produced the greatest excitement, and Julien would certainly have been massacred but for the prompt interference of the police. He was taken before the revoluntionary tribunal, sentenced to death, and executed on the following day.

No execution took place on September 3.

En revanche, there was a wholesale massacre, which it is not my business to speak of. While the massacre was taking place, the revolutionary tribunal was trying

The howls of the

Major Bachmann, a Swiss officer. victims and the cries of the slaughterers could be heard, and frequently disturbed the audience. When the President passed sentence, Major Bachmann ran to join his friends who were being killed; but he was held back and reserved for the scaffold, on which he suffered the next day.

Old Cazotte, who, thanks to his daughter's devotion, had found mercy before the mock tribunal instituted at l'Abbaye, was less fortunate with the judges appointed by law. Cazotte was a graceful poet, whose mysticism sometimes verged on prophecy. One evening, in the Marchioness de Vaudreuil's drawing-room, he was seized with one of his habitual fits of sadness. When enquiries were made concerning his state of mind, he said that although he was awake he could see, as in a dream, things which filled him with terror; he spoke of prisons and executioners' carts, and he described the instrument of death which was to be invented twenty years afterwards. He added that he could see most of those who were present perishing by the executioner's hand.

A moment of silence followed this strange prediction; it was broken by Madame de Montmorency, who said laughing :

'You spoke of carts, my dear Monsieur Cazotte; let me hope that I shall be allowed to go to the scaffold in my own carriage.'

'Not so, Madame,' answered the visionnaire, 'for it shall be the last privilege accorded to the King of

France.

You will be taken to the scaffold in a cart just like myself.'

Cazotte's singular vision was fully realised. He was arrested on August 25, sentenced to death and executed.

Executions were numerous up to the time of the King's death; but the number was considerably greater afterwards. The emigrants who fought in the ranks of the Prussian army, and were captured on the battle-field, suffered on the scaffold, together with a large party of ordinary miscreants, whose names it is not necessary to mention here.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE DEATH OF LOUIS XVI.

THE King's death was the first signal for the struggle between the two factions which predominated in the Convention. The Gironde objected to the death of Louis XVI.; but the influence of the Montagne prevailed, and the monarch's appearance on the scaffold was the prelude to a series of wholesale executions. The people, too, was so infuriated that it frequently took the law into its own hands. Heads carried on pikes were often seen in the streets. Was the people, properly so called, wholly responsible for this cruelty? My grandfather was wont to tell us that he had often recognised gaol birds among the individuals who incited to murder, and he had no doubt that most of the outrages so frequently perpetrated were committed at the instigation of those ruffians.

Charles Henri Sanson was then living with his son (my father), who was twenty-seven years of age; and his style of life was so quiet and secluded that on August 10 he was not even aware that the Tuileries had been attacked and devastated by the people. On that day my father went to breakfast with his uncle, Louis Cyr

Charlemagne Sanson. I cannot do better than allow him to describe what occurred on the occasion.

'After breakfast,' he writes, 'I had opened the window to air the room. I looked out and saw a crowd in the street, but, as the apartment was on the fourth floor, I could not see distinctly what was taking place. However, I espied a young fellow who was raising in the air something stuck on a pole. My aunt, who was also looking out, hastily retreated, exclaiming :

"Good heavens, it is a head!"

'This exclamation filled us with fear, and we felt the more anxious to know what had happened. But before we could get any information a larger crowd rushed down the street in pursuit of a young man, who, as we perceived, was a Swiss guard of the Poissonnière barracks.

I

'The fugitive had a good start, and was anxiously looking about for a means of escape. I confess that both myself and my uncle were rather rash; but we could not resist our first impulse of compassion. told my uncle that we could not allow a man to be massacred before our very door; and, in spite of the advice of those who had breakfasted with us, we hastily went down and opened the door.

"What do you want to do with this young man?" said I to some of those who gave chase.

"But, sir," answered one, "the Swiss guards are being killed."