without accident. The crowd was thickly packed on the Place Saint-Louis. As the cart stopped Jean Louschart addressed a question to the priest who was sitting near him, and my grandfather heard the latter answer, ‘To save you.' 'No, father,' said the doomed man in a feverish voice and with some impatience; if I am innocent of the intention of committing the crime, my hands are nevertheless stained with blood. I must die, and I wish to die.-Be quick, sir,' he added, turning to my grandfather.

'Sir,' answered Charles Henri, pointing to the infuriated masses that were already breaking through the paling, 'if there is a man here who is in danger of death it is not you.'

Hardly were the words out of his mouth than a tempest of groans and screams burst forth. The paling was broken and trodden under foot, and hundreds of men rushed on the scaffold. The smith who had already spoken to Louschart was among the foremost. He seized the prisoner in his muscular arms, cut his bonds, and prepared to carry him off in triumph. An extraordinary scene now took place; Jean Louschart struggled violently against his saviours, turned towards the executioner and begged for death with the earnestness usually displayed by other culprits in asking for mercy. But his friends surrounded him, and at length succeeded in carrying him away.

My grandfather's position was perilous in the extreme.

Separated from his assistants, alone amidst a crowd that knew him but too well, he really thought that

his last hour was at hand. His countenance probably betrayed his thoughts, for the tall smith came up to him, and seized his arm: Fear nothing, Charlot,'' he cried; 'we don't want to harm you, but your tools. Henceforth, Charlot, you must kill your customers without making them suffer.' And speaking to the crowd: 'Let him pass, and take care he is not hurt.'

This harangue calmed the crowd, and my grandfather was allowed to withdraw. In less time than it takes to write this account the scaffold and all its accessories were broken into pieces, which were thrown on the pile prepared for the burning of the prisoner's body; and the terrible wheel was placed on the summit as a kind of crown. Fire was set to the heap, and men and women, holding each other by the hand, formed an immense ring and danced around the crackling pile until it was reduced to ashes.

This name, popularly given to Charles Henri Sanson, has been retained and is still familiarly given to the executioner.

CHAPTER XX.

MARIE ANNE JUGIER, MY GRANDMOTHER.

IN the preceding chapter I have shown the last appearance of the wheel as an instrument of death. The origin of this punishment is not certain; but it is generally believed that the fable of Ixion suggested it; and there can be no doubt that if, later, it was so conspicuous among the penalties of Christian societies, it was because it was a substitute for crucifixion, which could not have been retained without fear of committing sacrilege.

I have already given instances of the singular liking shown by parliaments for this punishment. It is easy to imagine how often it was resorted to when it is remembered that the old criminal legislation of France inflicted it in one hundred and fifteen kinds of crimes. Francis I. and his minister Cardinal Duprat were responsible for this excess of barbarity. An edict issued under the reign of Francis made of the wheel the special punishment of highwaymen and burglars, the gibbet being reserved for murderers. Human life, at the time, was, it appeared, less sacred than property, since attempts on the former were less severely punished than raids

on the latter. This anomaly could not long continue; under subsequent reigns, thieves, assassins, parricides were broken on the wheel with additional or mitigated inflictions, according to the nature of the crime. The gibbet became a secondary punishment, and almost fell into disuse in comparison with its flourishing period under the superintendence of our famous predecessor Tristan l'Hermite.

From 1770 to 1780 I find in my grandfather's notes that culprits broken on the wheel were far more numerous than those who perished by the noose. In 1769, on January 18, Etienne Charles and François Legros, sentenced for murder; on the 21st, André-Etienne Petit, for common theft; on April 27, François Boussin, for theft and murder; on August 22, Jean Brouage, for stealing linen; on September 22, Jean Lemoine, for murder; in 1771, on August 19, François Alain, for murder; in 1772, on January 16, Louis François Daux, for murder; on the 29th, François Abraham Lecerf, for theft; on August 4, Joseph Savel, for theft; on December 7, Marie Picard, her son Pierre, aged seventeen, and a man named Nicolas Rose, for robbing and murdering one Michel Moré; in 1775, on January 14, Edme Brochart, for theft and murder; on May 16, Charlotte Beuton, for murder; on September 27, Paul Darel, for theft; in 1777, on July 11, J. B. Campagnard, for murder; in 1778, on July 21, Jacques Neuiller, for theft; on September 2, Mathurin Barsagoult, for the same crime.

I have only quoted a few examples; otherwise I

could fill half a volume with the names of culprits who were broken. The wheel always excited the disgust of the public at large, and all the petitions of the deputies to the States-General in 1789 asked for its abolition.

Before entering into the period of the Revolution, I may be allowed to say a few words respecting my grandmother, and her management of our house. The death of Marthe Dubut and the departure of JeanBaptiste Sanson had brought into it an atmosphere of loneliness. Charles Henri Sanson soon felt this and thought of marrying. He had retained certain elegant habits and was passionately fond of shooting; and his frequent absence from home, and his consequent inability to see to the management of his household affairs, made him especially eager to find a wife as soon as possible.

The environs of Montmartre were then cultivated by market gardeners. Charles Sanson often traversed these parts in his excursions. He became acquainted with one of the gardeners, who had a numerous family. His eldest daughter, Marie Anne Jugier, was, in every respect, an excellent person. My grandfather had often admired her, and he sued for her hand, although she was thirty-two years of age-six years older than himself. His suit was accepted, and on January 20, 1765, the wedding took place in the church of Saint-Pierre Mont

martre.

Although my grandmother was, as I have just observed, older than my grandfather by six years, she survived him more than twelve years. I knew her