considerable difficulties, for the establishment has sometimes needed to be removed bodily out of doors, or to be shifted from place to place amongst the 4000 and odd rooms of the immense palace of the “Servus Servorum.” It has been in the “Foundry,” it has been in the chamber of the Inquisition, but it is now, we will hope, quite settled in a noble room, well lighted and fitted with every convenience. Judging from the ease and rapidity with which the little pieces of enamel are inserted and cemented, it might be supposed that mosaic work was not so very protracted after all, and perhaps it is so chiefly in special pieces. Those who wish to notice carefully the process, will find themselves courteously welcomed to do so, by the different grades of “professor” in the art that may chance to be at work, and, before they leave, it is very likely they will be shown a finished specimen of Raphael’s Mad. della Seggiola, or some other popular favourite, and hardly know the enamel from the canvas copy. The small mosaics in the shops, of which some are so pretty, and of which all the good ones are so expensive, seem only to have become common articles of manufacture within recent times. They must have been always suggesting themselves, at least since the discovery of that sweet piece of old “vermiculated” work at Hadrian’s villa, that is now called “Pliny’s doves,” and, strange to say, is darkly shelved in the Museum of the Capitol, while its Pergamean history and its real beauty deserve for it a glass-case in the best room of the Vatican.
TWO REGICIDES.
Some months ago, an aspirant to martyrdom “pro aris et focis” was extinguished by a Prussian tribunal in a simple but most effectual manner. An ignominious sentence divested his antecedents of every spark of romance, blighted his hopes of immortality, stripped him of all claim to sympathy, and degraded him to the status of a common malefactor.
A century has elapsed since Damiens sought a niche in the Temple of Fame by similar means. It is curious to note the different treatment of the two criminals, and the different sentiments their memory consequently evokes. They were both guilty of the same crime—both had raised a sacrilegious hand against one of those who, “by the grace of God,” rule over this earth; but the historian will contemptuously record the name of Oscar Becker as that of a cowardly assassin, whilst he will overlook the heinous nature of Damiens’ offence in detestation of his cruel judges.
“Whenever,” says an eminent historian, “the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law should give way to the common feelings of mankind.” The Supreme Court of Berlin has practically acknowledged the truth of this aphorism; but it would seem that the French legal luminaries of the eighteenth century held a different opinion. The sentence they passed upon Damiens, for conspiring to assassinate Louis the Fifteenth, was—death by torture.
In order to carry it out the more effectually, learned physicians held long and frequent consultations as to the amount of agony, and the kind of agony the human frame could longest support before death released it from suffering. Grave dissertations were published on the subject. Public executioners compared notes with the learned, the former contributing their experience—the latter, scientific theories. It was at length determined to begin with the torture of the boot.
The decision of this sanguinary Areopagus was promptly acted upon. At twelve o’clock on the ensuing night the criminal was conducted to the torture-chamber of the Bastille, and the first act of the bloody drama began. Those gloomy walls that had looked down upon so many dark deeds, never witnessed a sadder scene of human suffering. The dim light of an iron lamp, suspended from the vaulted roof, fell upon the stalwart forms of the executioners, and a dark group of bronze-visaged men who silently watched their proceedings. Wedge after wedge was driven in with a sickening crash of human flesh and bone. The perspiration poured from the brows of the executioners as the dull blow of their sledge-hammers echoed through the dungeon, but not a sigh escaped the lips of the tortured wretch. At length the physician, who stood by with a hand on his fainting pulse, signed to them to pause. Nature could bear no more. The pale morning light, struggling through the grated windows, fell on a mangled but still breathing mass of humanity.
Weeks rolled on, and under the sedulous care of physicians and nurses Damiens gradually regained his strength. The time approached for the completion of the sentence.
It was a cold, bleak morning in February. Snow had fallen during the night and still covered the Place de Grève; but, nevertheless, every available spot was occupied. The Faubourg St. Antoine had disgorged its sans-culottic population. A sea of human heads surged to and fro in unwieldy mass,—clinging to chimneys, clustered on the trees, hanging on the roofs, they formed a brutal assemblage—fit spectators of a brutal drama. But in the balconies and windows overlooking the “Place” were hundreds of high-born ladies, many of them youthful and beautiful. They smiled and coquetted with their cavaliers, diamonds sparkled, and plumes waved in the winter wind. They were come to enjoy a new sensation, and to evince their loyal devotion to an outraged king. Some of the prices paid for places were fabulous. For days previous to the execution nothing else was talked of in the good city of Paris.
A scaffold, erected at the north eastern extremity of the “Place,” rose in stern black lines above the shifty multitude. In the centre was a chair firmly fixed to the boards, and at one end a large stove. Iron vessels containing resin, pitch, oil, wax, sulphur and lead bubbled and boiled on the furnace, whilst the flames cast a lurid glow on the cruel, swarthy countenances of the executioners as they completed the preparations, or watched over the seething caldrons.
The hoarse murmur of the crowd was now suddenly hushed. A general movement and flutter
