will soon be night;' and after a
pause he added: 'Alas! to-morrow it will be day for them!'

"They raised him up to take him away; he made the motion of a kiss
toward the crucifix; he was put into the tumbril, which took its way
toward Notre-Dame. Before the porch of the church they endeavored to
force him to kneel, but his legs were so broken that he uttered a
piercing cry in endeavoring to stoop; he was obliged to pronounce while
standing the words which the greffier dictated to him.

[Illustration: THE "FORMES ACERBES." After a drawing by Lafitte.

Expression used by Barere in his defence of Joseph Le Bon: "If Le Bon
had employed _formes acerbes_, he had at least shown his devotion to the
Republic." Le Bon caused the execution of more than fifteen hundred
persons; it was he who installed an orchestra at the foot of the
guillotine.]

"He was replaced in the cart and all returned to the Place de Greve,
which was literally full of people belonging to all classes of society.
Arrived at the foot of the scaffold, Damiens asked to speak to the
commissioners; he was carried to the Hotel de Ville, there he retracted
again the accusation he had made against Gautier, which had been wrung
from him by torture, recommended his wife and his children to M.
Pasquier, and at five o'clock he was set down again on the Place and
they lifted him on the scaffold.

"The braziers in which was burning the sulphur mingled with burning
coals were ready; his arm was attached to a bar in such a manner that
the wrist extended beyond the outside plank of the platform. The
executioner brought up the brazier. Damiens uttered a frightful cry and
writhed; then, that movement over, he lifted his head and watched his
hand burning without manifesting his pain in any other manner than by
the chattering of his teeth. It was one of Sanson's valets, Andre
Legris, who, for the sum of a hundred livres, undertook the tearing with
pinchers. He carried his instrument over the arms, over the chest, and
over the thighs of the patient, and brought away shreds of flesh; then
he poured into the gaping wounds boiling oil, flaming rosin, sulphur
fused, or melted lead, with which the other valets supplied him.

"Damiens, mad with pain, his eyes immeasurably out of their orbits, the
hair standing on his head, cried, in a voice that made every one
tremble: 'More! more!'

"But he was taken down from the platform, the traces of the horses were
attached to each one of