du
Pont-Herisson. The rue du Palais is continued in a straight line by the
short rue de Monte-a-Regret, which leads to the place des Arenes, where
the executions take place, and which probably owes its name to that
circumstances. There is therefore but little distance to go, few houses
to pass, and few windows to look from. No person in good society would
be willing to mingle in the crowd which would fill the streets.

But the expected execution was, to the great astonishment of the whole
town, put off from day to day for the following reason:--

The repentance and resignation of great criminals on their way to death
is one of the triumphs which the Church reserves for itself,--a triumph
which seldom misses its effect on the popular mind. Repentance is so
strong a proof of the power of religious ideas--taken apart from all
Christian interest, though that, of course, is the chief object of
the Church--that the clergy are always distressed by a failure on such
occasions. In July, 1829, such a failure was aggravated by the spirit of
party which envenomed every detail in the life of the body politic. The
liberal party rejoiced in the expectation that the priest-party (a term
invented by Montlosier, a royalist who went over to the constitutionals,
and was dragged by them far beyond his wishes),--that the priests would
fail on so public an occasion before the eyes of the people. Parties _en
masse_ commit infamous actions which would cover a single man with shame
and opprobrium; therefore when one man alone stands in his guilt
before the eyes of the masses, he becomes a Robespierre, a Jeffries, a
Laubardemont, a species of expiatory altar on which all secret guilts
hang their _ex-votos_.

The authorities, sympathizing with the Church, delayed the execution,
partly in the hope of gaining some conclusive information for
themselves, and partly to allow religion an opportunity to prevail.

Nevertheless, their power was not unlimited, and the sentence must
sooner or later be carried out. The same liberals who, out of mere
opposition, had declared Tascheron innocent, and who had done their best
to break down the verdict, now clamored because the sentence was not
executed. When the opposition is consistent it invariably falls into
such unreasonableness, because its object is not to have right on its
own side, but to harass the authorities and put them in the wrong.

Accordingly, about the beginning of August, the government offi