410 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. of drawing down upon himself and his family the vengeance of the followers of the Bab ; and, in order that others might be implicated in these executions, he hit upon the device of assigning a criminal to each department of the State ; the several ministers of the Shah being thus compelled to act as executioners. The minister for foreign affairs, the minister of finance, the son of the prime minister, the adjutant- general of the army, and the master of the mint, each fired the first shot, or made the first cut with a sabre, at the culprits assigned to their several departments, respectively. The artillery, the infantry, the camel-artillery, and the cavalry each had a victim assigned to them.* But the result of all this slaughter was, as might have been expected, to create a feeling of sympathy for the Babis ; whose crime was lost sight of in the punishment which had overtaken em. They met their fate with the utmost firmness, and none of them cared to accept the life which was offered to them on the simple condition of reciting the Moslem creed. While the lighted candles were burning the flesh of one follower of the Bab, he was urged by the chief magistrate of Tehran to curse the Bab and live. He would not renounce the Bab ; but he cursed the magistrate who tempted him to do so, he cursed the Shah, and even cursed the prophet Mahomed, his spirit rising superior to the agony of his tor- ture
- "Even the Shah's admirable French physician, the late lamented
Dr. Cloquet, was invited to show his loyalty by following the example of the rest of the court. He excused himself, and pleasantly said that he lolled too many men professionally to permit him to increase their number by any voluntary homicide on his part." Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia. By Lady SHEIL, p. 277.
