his limbs. Each horse was held by the bridle by
an aid; another was placed behind with a whip in his hand; the
executioner, standing on the platform, gave the signal.

"The four horses sprang violently forward, one of them fell, but the
body of the unfortunate wretch was not dismembered.

"Three times the horses recommenced their efforts, and three times the
resistance of the body made them fall back. Only the arms and legs of
the patient, who was still living, were immeasurably elongated.

"The cure had fainted; the executioners no longer knew what to do. The
spectators, at first dumb with stupor and fright, now uttered
exclamations of horror.

"It was then that the surgeon, Boyer, ascended to the Hotel de Ville to
ask of the commissioners permission to cut the joints; this was at first
refused, on the pretext that the longer the execution lasted the more
would the criminal suffer, and that this was what was necessary; but the
surgeon having affirmed that the tearing asunder could not be effected
without aid, it was resolved to permit the necessary amputation.

"But there was no instrument.

"Andre Legris performed the operation with blows of a hatchet, he cut
the arm-pits and the joints of the thighs. The two thighs were first
dismembered, then a shoulder, and it was not till after this that the
wretched Damiens expired.

"A sigh of relief escaped from all breasts.

"But it was not finished: the four members and the trunk were gathered
up and all placed upon the pile of fagots, and the flames arose. The
execution of Damiens had lasted an hour and a quarter....

[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE GUILLOTINING THE EXECUTIONER.

From an engraving in the collection of M. Felix Perin.

"Robespierre, after having had all the French guillotined, beheads the
executioner with his own hand." This caricature cost the engraver his
life.]

"It was observed, when they picked up the body of Damiens to throw it
on the pyre, that his hair, which was brown when he arrived on the Place
de Greve, had become white as snow."

The judgment rendered by the Parlement in the famous case of the diamond
necklace, in the following reign, was received with very different
emotions by the court and the people. It may be remembered that the
Bishop of Strasbourg, Cardinal de Rohan, a member of one of the most
arrogant families of the nobility, anxious to regain the favor of the
Queen Marie Antoinette, had fallen into the snares of a clever
adv