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Mysteries of Paris, V3

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"Never too late to be a coward!" cried the mother, with fury. "Oh! what a
race! what a race! Happily Nicholas has escaped; happily François and
Amandine will escape you. They have already the seeds of vice: poverty will
cause them to grow!"

"Oh, Martial! watch well over them, or they will end like my mother and
myself. They will also lose their heads," cried Calabash, uttering a hollow
groan.

"He will do well to watch over them," cried the widow, vehemently; "vice
and misery will be stronger than he, and some day they will avenge father,
mother, and sister."

"Your horrible hope will not be realized, mother!" answered Martial,
indignantly. "Neither they nor I shall ever more have misery to fear. La
Louve saved the young girl whom Nicholas wished to drown, the relations of
this girl have proposed to give us plenty of money, or less money and some
lands in Algiers. We have preferred the land. There is some danger, but
that suits us. To-morrow we leave with the children, and never return."

"Is what you say true?" asked the widow, in a tone of irritated surprise.

"I never told a falsehood."

"You do now, to drive me mad."

"Why? because the welfare of your children is secured?"

"Yes; of the wolfs cubs you would make lambs. The blood of your father,
your sister, mine, will not be avenged."

"At this moment, do not talk thus."

"I have killed--they kill me. We are even."

"Mother, repentance."

The widow shouted with laughter.

"For thirty years I have lived in crime, and to repent for thirty years
they give me three days, and death at the end of them. Do you think I have
time? No, no; when my head falls, it will gnash its teeth with rage and
hatred."

"Brother, help--take me from hence; they are coming," murmured Calabash, in
a suffocating voice, for the poor creature began to be delirious.

"Will you hush?" said the widow, exasperated by the weakness of Calabash,
"will you hush? Oh! the wretch! and she _my_ daughter! pah!"

"Mother! mother!" cried Martial, tortured by this horrible scene, "why did
you send for me?"

"Because I thought to give you a heart and revenge: but who has not the one
has not the other, coward!"

"My mother!"

"Coward, I say!"

At this moment a tramp of footsteps was heard in the corridor. The veteran
looked at his watch, and stood up. The rising sun, dazzling and radiant,
shot suddenly a golden beam of light through the grated window of the
corridor opposite the door of the dungeon. This door was thrown open, and
two keepers appeared, bringing two chairs; then the jailer came, and said
to the widow, in an agitated voice, "Madame, it is time."

The widow stood up, impassible; Calabash uttered piercing screams. Four men
entered. Three of them, roughly clad, held in their hands small coils of
very fine but strong cord. The tallest of these four men, neatly dressed in
black, wearing a round hat and a white cravat, handed a paper to the
jailer. This man was the executioner. The paper was a receipt for two women
fit to be guillotined. The executioner took possession of these two of
God's creatures; from that time he was answerable.

To the frightful despair of Calabash had succeeded a helpless torpor. Two
of the assistants were obliged to seat her on her bed, and to sustain her.
Her jaws, clinched by convulsions, hardly allowed her to utter some
unmeaning words; she rolled around in vacancy her dull and almost sightless
eyes; her chin fell upon her breast, and without the assistance of the two
deputies, her body would have sunk to the ground like an inert mass.
Martial (after having for a long time embraced this unfortunate being)
alarmed, not daring nor able to move a step, and as if fascinated by the
scene, remained immovable. The brazen hardihood of the widow did not
forsake her; with her head erect and thrown back, she assisted to take off
the waistcoat, which impeded her movements. It fell to the ground, and she
remained in her old dress of black woolen.

"Where must I place myself?" she asked in a firm voice.

"Have the kindness to seat yourself in one of these two chairs," said the
executioner, pointing to them.

The door being left open, several of the keepers, the governor of the
prison, and some privileged persons, were seen standing in the corridor.
The widow walked with a firm and bold step to the place indicated, passing
near her daughter, when she stopped, and said in a voice slightly broken:

"Daughter, kiss me!"

At the voice, Calabash was aroused from her apathy, drew up on her seat,
and with a gesture of malediction, she cried, "If there is eternal fire,
descend into it, accursed."

"My child, embrace me!" said the widow again, making a step toward her
daughter.

"Do not approach me! you have ruined me!" murmured the unfortunate,
throwing out her hands as if to repulse her mother.

"Forgive me!"

"No, no!" said Calabash, in a convulsed voice; and this effort having
exhausted her strength, she fell back, almost without consciousness, into
the arms of the assistants.

A shade passed over the impassible face of the widow; for a moment her dry
and burning eyes became moistened. At this instant she met the eyes of her
son. After a moment's hesitation, and as if she yielded to the effect of an
inward struggle, she said to him, "And you?"

Martial threw himself sobbing into the arms of his mother.

"Enough!" said the widow, overcoming her emotion, and disengaging herself
from the embraces of her son. "He is waiting," she added, pointing to the
executioner.

Then she walked rapidly toward the chair, where she resolutely seated
herself. The spark of maternal sensibility, which had for a moment lighted
up the dark recesses of this corrupted heart, was extinguished forever.

"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 assistants 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 assistant 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
coarse, 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 assist 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
assistant, entered the corridor. The two other assistants 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 assistant, 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 mére Godichon_,' 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
multitude.

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 God, full of life and strength, as they would slaughter
an ox. It causes the multitude 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 bloody and solemn act; nothing announces
that, on this day, they are _killing a man_; they laugh and sing at
the theaters; the multitudes pass 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 assertion 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 wishing 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 _protégée_,
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 gratitude 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
friendship 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 compassion.

"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."

"Well, what then?"

The Slasher again remained silent; then he replied, struggling to preserve
his calmness, "Hold, Martial; I know that you will laugh at me; but I wish
to tell you all, so that, if anything should happen to me, this at least
will prove that I was not deceived."

"What is it, then?"

"When M. Rudolph asked if it should be agreeable for us to go together to
Algiers, and to be neighbors there, I did not wish to deceive either you or
your wife. I told you what I had been."

"Let us speak no more about that. You have undergone your punishment--you
are as good as the best of us. But I can conceive that, like me, you would
prefer to live abroad, thanks to our generous protector, than to remain
here, where, no matter how honest, and how easy in our circumstances we may
be, we shall always be reproached, you for the crime which you have
expiated, and which you still regret, and I for the crimes of my parents,
for which I am not responsible. But, between us, the past is gone, and gone
forever. Be tranquilized; we rely upon you, as you may rely upon us."

"Between us, perhaps, the past will be forgotten; but, as I said to M.
Rudolph, Martial, there is a Providence above, and I have killed a man."

"It is a great misfortune; but at the time you did not know what you were
doing--you were not yourself; and, besides, you have saved the lives of
others, and that ought to count in your favor."

"Listen, Martial, I have now spoken to you of my unhappiness, because,
formerly, I often had a dream, in which I saw the sergeant, whom I killed;
for a long time I have not had this dream, and last night I dreamed it"

"It was chance."

"No, this forebodes that some misfortune will happen to me this day."

"You are unreasonable, my good comrade."

"I have a presentiment that I shall never quit Paris."

"Once more, you have not common sense. Your sorrow at the thought of
quitting our benefactor, the knowledge that you were to accompany me to
Bicetre, where so painful an interview awaited me; all this agitated you
last night; hence naturally, your dream returned to you."

The Slasher sadly shook his head.

"It has returned to me on the night before the departure of M. Rudolph, for
it is today that he goes."

"Today?"

"Yes; yesterday I sent a messenger to his hotel, not daring to go there
myself; he has forbidden it. They told him that the prince would set out
this morning, at eleven o'clock, by the Barrière Charenton. Thus, when we
shall have arrived in Paris, I will post myself there, to endeavor to see
him for this last time! the last!"

"He appears so good that I comprehend how well you must love him."

"Love him!" said the Slasher, with deep and passionate emotion; oh, yes! Do
you understand, Martial! to sleep on the ground--to eat black bread--to be
his dog; but to be where he is, I ask nothing more--that was too much--he
did not wish it."

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