Mysteries of Paris Volume III Part 68

"Sir," said the veteran to Martial, approaching him with interest, "do not remain here. Come, come."

Martial, stupefied, with horror and alarm, mechanically followed the soldier. Two of the a.s.sistants had carried the wretched Calabash to the other chair; one of them sustained the almost lifeless body, while the other, by means of whip-cord, exceedingly fine but very strong, tied her hands behind her back, and also fastened her feet together by the ankles, allowing slack enough to enable her walk slowly. The executioner and his other a.s.sistant performed the same operation on the widow, whose features underwent no alteration; only from time to time she coughed slightly. When the condemned were thus prevented from offering any resistance, the executioner, drawing from his pocket a long pair of scissors, said to her with marked politeness, "Have the goodness to bend your head."

The widow obeyed, saying: "We are good customers; you have had my husband; now here are his wife and daughter."

Without replying, the executioner gathered in his left hand the long gray hair of the condemned, and commenced cutting it short--very short, particularly about the neck.

"This makes the third time that I have had my hair dressed in my lifetime,"

said the widow, with a horrible laugh: "the day of my first communion, when they put on my veil; the day of my marriage, when they put on my orange blossoms; and now to-day--the head-dress of death."

The executioner remained silent. The hair of the condemned being thick and coa.r.s.e, the operation was so long in being performed, that Calabash's lay strewed upon the ground before her mother's was half finished.

"You do not know of what I am thinking?" said the widow, after having looked at her daughter again.

The executioner continued to keep silent. Nothing could be heard but the snipping of the scissors and the kind of rattling which from time to time escaped from the throat of Calabash. At this moment was seen in the corridor a priest of venerable appearance, who approached the governor, and spoke a few words to him in a low tone. The chaplain came to make a last effort to soften the heart of the widow.

"I think," resumed the widow at the end of some moments, and seeing that the executioner did not reply, "I think that at five years old, my daughter, whose head is to be cut off, was the handsomest child that I ever saw. She had flaxen hair and rosy cheeks. Then, who would have told me that,--" After a pause, she cried, with a burst of laughter, and an expression impossible to be described, "What a comedy is fate!"

At this moment the last locks of the condemned fell upon her shoulders.

"It is finished, madame,' said the executioner, politely.

"Thank you. I recommend to you my son Nicholas," said the widow; "you will dress his hair some of these days." A keeper came and whispered a few words to her.

"No; I have already said no," answered she, roughly. The priest heard these words, raised his eyes toward heaven, clasped his hands, and disappeared.

"Madame, we are going to set out; will you take something?" said the executioner, obsequiously.

"Thank you; to-night I will take a drink of sawdust."

And the widow after this new sarcasm stood up erect. Although her step was firm and resolute, the executioner obligingly wished to a.s.sist her; she made a gesture of impatience and said, in a harsh and imperious tone:

"Do not touch me; I have a firm step and a good eye. On the scaffold you will see I have a good voice, and if I speak words of repentance."

And the widow, leaving the dungeon, escorted by the executioner and an a.s.sistant, entered the corridor. The two other a.s.sistants were obliged to carry Calabash in a chair; she was dying. After having traversed the whole length of the corridor, the funeral procession ascended the same staircase, which conducted to a court on the outside. The sun, with its warm and golden light, gilded the tops of the high white walls which surrounded the court, and strangely contrasted with the pure blue of the sky. The air was soft and balmy; never was a spring morning more smiling, more magnificent.

In this court were seen a detachment of police, a cab, and a long, narrow vehicle, painted yellow, drawn by three post horses, which neighed gayly, shaking little bells on their harness. This vehicle was entered from behind like an omnibus. This was the cause of a last joke from the widow.

"The conductor will not say full?" said she, as she mounted the step as lightly as the cord which confined her ankles would allow.

Calabash, expiring, sustained by an a.s.sistant, was placed in the carriage opposite her mother, and the door was closed. The hackney-coachman had fallen asleep; the executioner shook him.

"Excuse me, citizen," said he, descending hastily from his seat; "but a night in Mid-Lent is rough. I had just taken to Vendanges de Bourgogne a load of maskers, who were singing, '_La mere G.o.dichon_,' when you engaged me by the hour. I--"

"Enough. Follow this vehicle to the Boulevard St. Jacques."

"Excuse me, citizen. An hour ago I was going to the 'Vendanges;' now to the guillotine! That proves that, as the saying is, there are queer ups and downs in life!"

The two vehicles, preceded and followed by the gendarmes, left Bicetre and took the road to Paris.

We have presented the picture of the toilet of the condemned in all its frightful reality, because it seems to us that we can derive from it powerful arguments. Against punishment of death. Against the manner in which it is applied. Against the effects which must be expected from such an example given to the populace.

The toilet, although divested of that solemnity, at once imposing and religious, which ought, at least to surround all the acts of the highest punishment known to the laws, is the most impressive of all the ceremonies attending the execution of a criminal, and yet it is concealed from the mult.i.tude.

In Spain, on the contrary, the condemned remains exposed during three days in a "_chapelle ardente_;" his coffin is continually before his eyes; the priests say the prayers for the dying; the bells of the church night and day ring a funeral knell.

It will be conceived that this kind of initiation to death may alarm the most hardened criminals, and inspire with salutary terror the crowd which surrounds the "_chapelle mortuaire_."

Then the day of the execution is a day of public mourning; the bells of all the churches toll; the condemned is slowly conducted to the scaffold, with mournful and imposing pomp; his coffin is carried before him; the priests, walking at his side, chant the prayers for the dead; then comes the religious brotherhood; and, finally, the mendicant friars, asking from the crowd money for prayers for the repose of the culprit's soul. The crowd never remains deaf to this appeal. Without doubt, all this is frightful, but it is logical and imposing. It shows that they do not cut off from this world a creature of G.o.d, full of life and strength, as they would slaughter an ox. It causes the mult.i.tude to reflect (who always judge of the crime by the magnitude of the punishment) that homicide is a fearful offense, since its punishment disturbs, afflicts, and sets in commotion a whole city.

Again, this dreadful spectacle may cause serious reflections, inspire salutary alarms; and that which is barbarous in this human sacrifice, is at least hidden by the awful majesty of its execution. But, we ask, the events taking place exactly as we have described them (and sometimes even _less seriously_), what kind of an example can it afford? Early in the morning, the condemned is bound and thrown into a closed carriage; the postilion whips up his horses, reaches the scaffold; the ax descends, and a head falls into a basket, in the midst of the most atrocious jeerings of the vilest of a vile populace! Finally, in a hasty and secret execution, where is the example? where is the terror? And then, as the execution takes place, as we may say, privately, in a byplace, with great precipitation, the whole town is ignorant of this b.l.o.o.d.y and solemn act; nothing announces that, on this day, they are _killing a man_; they laugh and sing at the theaters; the mult.i.tudes pa.s.s on, careless and indifferent. As it regards society, religion, and humanity, this judicial homicide, committed in the name of the _interests of all_, is, however, something which ought to be of importance to _all_. In fine, let us say it again, say it always, here is the sword, but where is the crown? Beside the punishment show the recompense; then only will the lesson be complete and fruitful.

If, on the day following this morn of sorrow and of death, the people, who have seen the blood of a great criminal redden the scaffold, should see the truly virtuous man honored and rewarded, they would dread as much the punishment of the first, as they would ambitiously covet the triumphs of the last; terror hardly prevents crime, never does it inspire virtue. Does any one consider the effect of capital punishment on the criminals themselves? Either they brave it with reckless impudence; or, inanimate, they suffer it, half dead with terror; or they offer their heads with profound and sincere repentance.

Now the punishment is insufficient for those who defy it; useless for those who are already morally dead; excessive for those who repent with sincerity. Let us repeat it: society does not kill the murderer to cause him suffering, or to inflict the _lex talionis_; it kills him to prevent him from doing harm; it kills him that the example of his punishment may serve as a warning to murderers _to come._ We think that the punishment is barbarous, and that it does not sufficiently terrify. If this a.s.sertion is doubted, we will recall many proved facts of the deep horror expressed by hardened criminals for solitary confinement. Is it not known that some have committed murders in order to be condemned to death, preferring this punishment to a cell? What, then, would be their horror, when _blindness_, joined to solitary confinement, would deprive them of the hope of escape--a hope which he preserves, and which he sometimes realizes, even in a dungeon and loaded with irons. And touching this matter, we also think that the abolishment of capital punishment will be one of the forced consequences of solitary confinement; the alarm which this punishment inspires the generation who at this moment people the prisons and the galleys, being such, that many among these incorrigibles prefer to incur the highest penalty known to the law, than imprisonment in a cell; then, doubtless, the punishment of death ought to be suppressed, in order to sweep away this last and frightful alternative.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

MARTIAL AND THE SLASHER.

Before we pursue our narrative, let us say a few words touching the recently established connection between the Slasher and Martial. As soon as Germain had left the prison, the Slasher, who easily proved that he had robbed himself, confessed to the judge the reason of this singular deceit, and was set at liberty after receiving a severe and just reproof from the magistrate. Not having then recovered Fleur-de-Marie, and wis.h.i.+ng to recompense the Slasher (to whom he had already owed his life) for this new act of devotion, Rudolph, to crown the happiness of his rude _protegee_, had lodged him in the mansion of the Rue Plumet, promising him to take him in his train when he returned to Germany. We have already said that the Slasher felt for Rudolph the instinctive, faithful attachment of a dog for his master. To live under the same roof with the prince; to see him sometimes; to await with impatience a new opportunity of sacrificing himself for his interests, were the limits of the ambition and happiness of the Slasher, who preferred a thousand times this situation, to money and the possession of the farm at Algiers which Rudolph had placed at his disposal. But when the prince had discovered his daughter, all was changed: notwithstanding his lively grat.i.tude toward the man to whom he owed his life, he could not resolve to take with him to Germany this witness of Fleur-de-Marie's first shame. Determined in any other manner to satisfy the wishes of the Slasher, he sent for him for the last time, and told him that he expected a new service from his attachment. At these words, the Slasher's face brightened, but it soon became clouded when he learned that not; only must he not follow the prince to Germany, but that it was necessary for him to leave the hotel that very day. It is useless to speak of the brilliant compensations that Rudolph offered to the Slasher: the money that was designed for him--the deed for the farm in Algiers--anything more that he wished; all was at his disposal.

The Slasher, cut to the heart, refused all; and, for the first time in his life, perhaps, this man shed tears. It had needed all the persuasion of Rudolph to induce him to accept his previous gifts. The next day the prince sent for La Louve and Martial; and, without informing them that Fleur-de-Marie was his daughter, he asked them what he could do for them; all their wishes should be accomplished. Perceiving their hesitation, and remembering what Fleur-de-Marie had told him about the slightly uncivilized tastes of La Louve and her husband, he offered them either a considerable amount of money, or the half of this amount, and lands in the vicinity of the farm which he had bought for the Slasher.

Both of them rugged, energetic, both endowed with good natural impulses, sympathized the better with each other, since they each had reasons to seek solitude--the one for her past life, the other for the crimes of his family. He was not deceived; Martial and La Louve accepted his offer with transport; then, having, through the intervention of Murphy, made the acquaintance of the Slasher, they mutually congratulated each other on the agreeable prospects before them in Algiers. Notwithstanding the deep sadness into which he was plunged; or, rather, in consequence of this sadness the Slasher, affected by the cordial advances of Martial and his wife, responded to them with warmth. In a short time a sincere friends.h.i.+p united the future colonists; persons of their temperament form very sudden attachments. La Louve and Martial, being unable, in spite of their kind attentions, to divert the melancholy of their new friend discontinued their efforts, trusting that the voyage, and the active employment of their future life, would change his thoughts; for, once in Algiers they would be obliged to turn their attention to the cultivation of the lands which had been bestowed upon them. These facts established, it will be understood that, informed of the painful interview that Martial was obliged to undergo in obedience to the last wishes of his mother, the Slasher had wished to accompany his new friend to the gate of Bicetre, where he awaited him in the coach which had brought them, and which took them back to Paris, after Martial, deeply agitated, had left the dungeon, where the terrible preparations for the execution of mother and sister were being made. The physiognomy of the Slasher was completely altered; the expression of boldness and of happiness which ordinarily characterized his manly face was replaced with sorrowful dejection: his voice, also had lost somewhat of its roughness. Grief, until now a stranger to him, had broken, prostrated his energetic nature. He looked at Martial with compa.s.sion.

"Cheer up," said the Slasher to him "you have done all that a brave fellow could do--it is all over, think of your wife, of those children whom you have prevented from following the bad example of their parents; and then, besides, this evening we shall have quitted Paris, never to return; and you will never again hear of that which afflicts you."

"It is a11 the same, do you see, Slasher. After all, it is my mother and my sister."

"But what would you--this has happened; and it's no use crying over spilled milk," said the Slasher, suppressing a sigh.

After a moment's silence, Martial said to him, cordially, "I, also, ought to console you, my poor fellow--always this melancholy."

"Always, Martial."

"Well, my wife and I confidently hope that, once away from Paris, it will be dissipated."

"Yes," said the Slasher, at the expiration of a few seconds, and hardly restraining a shudder, "if I leave Paris--"

"But we set out this evening."

"That is to say, _you_--you go this evening."

"And you, then, have you changed your intention recently?"

"No."