poor Gautier-Boismale badly, as well as Alexandre Buquet,
who died last. The agony of these two unfortunates was horrible,
prolonged as it was by the repairs necessary for the guillotine to
continue its work. The bloody scene did not end till half-past eight in
the morning.

The next day, December 31st, the exhibition on the scaffold of Mme. de
Combray, Placene, Vannier, and Lerouge, all condemned to twenty-two
years' imprisonment, was to take place. But when they went to the old
Marquise's cell she was found in such a state of exasperation, fearful
crises of rage being succeeded by deep dejection, that they had to give
up the idea of removing her. The three men alone were therefore tied to
the post, where they remained for six hours. As soon as they returned to
the conciergerie they were sent in irons to the House of Detention at
the general hospital, whence they were to go to the convict prison.

The Marquise had not twenty-two years to live. The thought of ending her
days in horrible Bicetre with thieves, beggars and prostitutes; the
humiliation of having been defeated, deceived and made ridiculous in the
eyes of all Normandy; and perhaps more than all, the sudden
comprehension that it had all been a game, that the Revolution would
triumph in the end, that she, a great and powerful lady--noble, rich, a
royalist--was treated the same as vulgar criminals, was so cruel a blow,
that it was the general impression that she would succumb to it. It is
impossible nowadays to realise what an effect these revelations must
have produced on a mind obstinately set against all democratic
realities. For nearly a month the Marquise remained in a state of
stupefaction; from the day of her condemnation till January 15th it was
impossible to get her to take any kind of nourishment. She knew that
they were watching for the moment when she would be strong enough to
stand the pillory, and perhaps she had resolved to die of hunger. There
had been some thought--and this compassionate idea seems to have
originated with Licquet--of sparing the aged woman this supreme agony,
but the Procurer-General showed such bitter zeal in the execution of the
sentence, that the prefect received orders from Real to proceed. He
writes on January 29th: "I am informed of her condition daily. She now
takes light nourishment, but is still extremely feeble; we could not
just now expose this woman to the pillory without public scandal."

What was most feared was