The fourth is in _Achillis Bocchii Quaestiones Symbolicae_, 1550.

There is one in _Cats's_ Dutch Emblems, 1650.

And the two last are in _Golfrieds's_ Historical Chronicles, in German,
folio, 1674. These five last are engraven on copper.

In all these representations the axe is either straight or semicircular,
but always horizontal. The sloping position of the French axe appears to
be the best calculated for celerity.

Machines of this kind are at present made use of for executions
throughout all France, and criminals are put to death in no other
manner.

The following is the account of an execution, which I had from an
eye-witness.

The crowd began to assemble at ten in the morning, and waited, exposed
to the intense heat of the sun in the middle of July, till four in the
afternoon, when the criminals, a Marquis and a Priest, were brought, in
two coaches; they were condemned for having forged _assignats_.

The Marquis ascended the scaffold first; he was as pale as if he had
already been dead, and he endeavoured to hide his face, by pulling his
hair over it; there were two executioners, dressed in black, on the
scaffold, one of which immediately tied a plank of about 18 inches
broad, and an inch thick, to the body of the Marquis, as he stood
upright, fastening it about the arms, the belly, and the legs; this
plank was about four feet long, and came almost up to his chin; a priest
who attended, then applied a crucifix to his mouth, and the two
executioners directly laid him on his belly on the bench, lifted up the
upper part of the board which was to receive his neck, adjusted his
head properly, then shut the board and pulled the string which is
fastened to the peg at the top of the machine, which lifted up a latch,
and down came the axe; the head was off in a moment, and fell into a
basket which was ready to receive it, the executioner took it out and
held it up by the hair to show the populace, and then put it into
another basket along with the body: very little blood had issued as yet.

The Priest was now taken out of the coach, from which he might have seen
his companion suffer; the bloody axe was hoisted up and he underwent the
same operation exactly. Each of these executions lasted about a minute
in all, from the moment of the criminal's ascending the scaffold to that
of the body's being taken away. It was now seen that the body of the
Marquis made such a violent expiration that the belly raised the lid o