stent refusal
of the Canadian to take advantage of the device proposed to him, by his
would-be preserver--of declaring himself a non-aristocrat. La Tour
vehemently urged him at least to cry--"_Vive la Republique!_" At that
Lecour seemed to conceive an idea, and stepping forward cried instead in
a voice of decision--

"Long live the King!"

His sentence was signed immediately.

Sanson's death-carts rolled into the courtyard. The hour for the daily
public show had arrived. The rest of the prisoners on trial were
peremptorily shoved through the mill of condemnation and all were
hustled up to the toilette of the executioner. Hands tied, hair cut,
feet bared, half a dozen were pushed up into each cart, seated three on
a side, and the carts set out. Seven in the line, the roughest, rudest
vehicles in the town, they jerked over the uneven cobbles, rumbled
across the Pont-Neuf, and crept along the Rue de la Monnaie and then
along the Rue Honore, regardless, both they, their carters, their
executioner's men, and their Dragoon escorts, of the agony they
freighted. The streets themselves wore unfeeling faces. The merchants
had closed their shutters and across the facades of many houses were
large inscriptions such as, "THE REPUBLIC ONE AND INDIVISIBLE,"
"LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY, _or Death_." And the sun poured down its
untempered rays on the condemned. But more pitiless than carts or
streets or sun were the coarse Jacobins who ran alongside.

With what fine wit they shouted--

"Long live the razor of the Republic!"

A newsvendor began to sing, and was joined in chorus--

"Doctor Guillotin,
That great _medecin_
Love of human kind
Preoccupies his mind."

As to the company of the lost in the carts, they consisted of a strange
variety. In the first, the principal persons were a majestic woman and
her two daughters, sitting erect, with hands tied, costumed freshly and
invested still with the old carefulness of manner; but the eyes of the
youngest were staring with horror. There was a large dog in the same
cart, condemned for carrying despatches. In the next a National
Assembly-man, betrayed by Robespierre, tore his hair and raved on his
fate. Opposite him two poor sewing-women, falsely accused by a
neighbour, sat helplessly, their eyes shut, their lips incessantly
repeating prayers; by their side, a boy of eight, with bright, fair
features, sobbing, his little hands tied, as the executioner's man
show