minutes left leisure for the study of such phenomena. He also affects the tone of a philanthropist, commiserates the king who died by his hands, and is careful to assure us that it was an assistant named Legros who, holding up the severed head of Charlotte Corday, struck the fair cheek which blushed beneath the blow. We are even asked to believe that he, Sanson, whispered to Marie Antoinette as she descended from the cart, "Have courage, Madame!"—counsel of which that daughter of the Cæsars stood in little need.
The contrast is sharp between this business-like butchery, where the condemned were begrudged the time it took to die, and the earlier executions, so full of dignity and composure. The vilest criminals felt intuitively that the fulness of their atonement consecrated those last sad moments, and behaved often with unexpected propriety and grace. Mme. de Brinvilliers was a full half hour upon the scaffold. The headsman prepared her for death, untying her cap-strings, cutting off her hair, baring her shoulders, and binding her hands. She was composed without bravado, contrite without
