MEMOIRS OF THE SANSONS. CHAPTER XXVII. AN EXPIATORY MASS. THE death of Louis XVI. profoundly disturbed Charles Henri Sanson. I do not know whether I have shown. this extraordinary man in sufficient relief. Charles Henri was a true descendant of his stoical grandmother. He had been imbued with her ideas and principles, and believed in the legitimacy of his profession and social mission. He regarded himself as invested with stern and painful, yet withal necessary, functions. This conviction had given him enough strength and courage to discharge duties which, I have every reason to believe, clashed with his natural disposition. His sense of duty had, however, been confirmed by forty years' experience. At times the cruelty of certain punishments, as in the case of Damiens, had slightly shaken his strong faith; but a sentiment of obedience prevailed in the end, and his scruples vanished before the certainty that the judges were responsible for the sentences which he, as their blind instrument, carried out. With such a theory he could not but regard the reprobation in which his functions were held as a prejudice of the worst description: hence his petitions to Parliament and the National Assembly. I may add that, in the case of the latter tribunal, my grandfather was so dissatisfied with the arguments suggested against his plea, that he immediately wrote the following letter to the members of the National Assembly: Gentlemen,-For a long time the executioners of criminal judgments have complained of the injustice of a prejudice which partly awards to them the disgrace of the crimes which justice punishes through their instrumentality. They have hitherto suffered the humiliation, and found sufficient consolation in their consciences. It is now attempted to sanction this prejudice by declaring them unfit to hold civil rights. Such is, at least, the intention expressed by the Abbé Maury in the sitting of the 23rd of the present month. 'The Abbé Maury's motion has caused us considerable alarm, and we are convinced that justice must be deprived of its executive strength if the motion is carried. The executioner of Paris, Charles Henri Sanson, who hereby presents to you his most respectful remonstrances, declares (and all his confrères will follow his example) that he will tender his resignation if you declare that executioners are not citizens. 'The petitioner trusts that you will deign to examine the question with the attention it deserves. At a time when justice prevails, you will not suffer it to be overlooked. • Executioner of criminal sentences in the town of Paris.' I said before that the Assembly gave no decision. respecting the petition presented by the executioners. The Assembly allowed the decree to stand as it had been previously worded, thus leaving the executioners to infer that they had gained their point. They were, in fact, henceforth treated as citizens; and we have seen my grandfather and father in the meetings of their sections and holding grades in the National Guard. Such had been, up to the death of the King, Charles Henri Sanson's feelings concerning what he styled the honour of his profession. The blood which flowed freely under the Convention altered his sentiments. Seeing an edifice he had been taught to respect falling, he began to doubt whether he had a right to believe in the scaffold after the overthrow of the throne; whether the destruction of royalty did not call for the abolition of the office of executioner. These doubts especially harassed him on the night that preceded the execution of the King. His state of mind can easily be imagined when it is remembered that he had sympathy for Louis XVI. More than once he thought of running away; but thereby he would have exposed his family to great danger. On January 21 my grandfather, who seldom left his home except when he was obliged, only spent a few moments with his wife and children. He came to see them after the execution, and then hurried away and returned after midnight. My grandmother was becoming very uneasy at his absence when Chesneau, who was still living under Charles Henri Sanson's roof, told her that his old friend had asked him the address of an aged priest and two nuns he knew, and that he had probably gone to see them. My grandmother understood the object of such a visit. She knew her husband's religious feelings, and guessed that, in spite of the perils and difficulties of the adventure, he was in quest of a remedy for his troubled conscience. Charles Henri Sanson returned at two o'clock in the morning, and before his friends had time to question him, he said: 'Chesneau, I have seen your protégés. It is bitterly cold. You must take some provisions to them tomorrow. You will provide them with victuals every week. But I do not want you to say whence these provisions come.—I have seen two nuns who are very miserable, my dear Mary,' he added, turning to my grandmother; 'if you can give them some clothing you will do them a good turn and oblige me.' Charles Henri Sanson retired after giving the above explanation of his absence. On the following day he related to his wife that he had found in a miserable hut of La Villette a priest who had escaped from the massacres of the Carmelites, and two nuns who had been driven away from their convent; that the priest had promised him that he would celebrate a mass, far less for the repose of the soul of the King than for the peace of his (Sanson's) conscience. The secret of this expiatory mass was kept during the remainder of my grandfather's life; but after his |