Part 4

And the street which was formerly called Chaussee d'Antin is now named Rue de Mirabeau, in honour of the late patriot of that name.

The church des Innocens was pulled down in 1786, and the vast cimetiere (burying ground) was filled up. Every night, during several months, carts were employed in carrying the bones found there, to other grounds out of Paris; it is now a market for vegetables. Very near this place was a fountain, which is mentioned in letters patent so long ago as 1273. It was rebuilt with extraordinary magnificence in 1550, repaired in 1708, and at last, in 1788, carefully removed to the center of the market, where it now stands.

The new Quai de Gesvres was constructed in 1787, and all the shops which formed a long narrow alley for foot passengers only, were destroyed.

At this time no person was permitted to walk in any other part of the Tuileries gardens than in the terrace of the Feuillans, which is parallel to the Rue St. Honore, and under the windows of the National Assembly; the only fence to the other part of the garden was a blue ribband extended between two chairs.

Hitherto cockades of silk had been worn, the aristocrats wore such as were of a paler blue and red, than those worn by the democrats, and the former were even distinguished by their carriages, on which a cloud was painted upon the arms, which entirely obliterated them, (of these I saw above thirty in the evening promenade, in the Bois de Boulogne:) but on the 30th of July, every person was compelled by the people to wear a linen cockade, without any distinction in the red and blue colours.

EXECUTION OF TWO CRIMINALS, WITH A BEHEADING MACHINE.

ON the 4th of August a criminal was beheaded, in the Place de Greve. I did not see the execution, because, as the hour is never specified, I might have waited many hours in a crowd, from which there is no extricating one's self. I was there immediately after, and saw the machine, which was just going to be taken away. I went into a coffee-house and made a drawing, which is here engraven. It is called la Guillotine, from the name of the person who first brought it into use in Paris: that at Lisle is called le Louison, for a similar reason. In English it is termed a maiden.

I have seen the following seven engravings of such an instrument. The most ancient is engraven on wood, merely outlines, and very badly drawn; it is in Petrus de Natalibus Catalogus Sanctorum, 1510.

There was a German translation of some of Petrarch's Works, published in 1520; this contains an engraving in wood, representing an execution, with a great number of figures, correctly drawn.

Aldegrever, in 1553, published another print on this subject.

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 of the basket it was in, and the blood rushed out of the great arteries in torrents.

The windows of the Place de Greve were, as usual on such occasions, filled with ladies. Many persons were performing on violins, and trumpets, in order to pass the time away, and to relieve the tediousness of expectation.

I have on several other days seen felons sitting on stools on this scaffold, with their hands tied, and their arms and bodies fastened to a stake by a girth, bareheaded, with an inscription over their heads, specifying their crimes and punishment; they are generally thus exposed during five or fix hours, and then sent to prison, or to the gallies according to the sentence.

VERSAILLES. BOTANY. SOUNDING MERIDIANS.

I went once to Versailles; there is hardly any thing in the palace but the bare walls, a very few of the looking-glasses, tapestry, and large pictures remaining, as it has now been near two years uninhabited. I crossed the great canal on foot; there was not a drop of water in it.

In the Menagerie I saw the Rhinoceros, which has been 23 years there; there is likewise a lion, with a little dog in the same den, as his companion, and a zebra.

The collection of orange trees cannot be matched in any country where these trees do not grow naturally; the number is about six hundred, the largest trunk is about fifteen inches in diameter, and the age of the most ancient of these trees exceeds three centuries.

The Jardin Potager, or kitchen garden, is of fifty acres, divided into about five or six and twenty small gardens, of one, two, or three acres, walled round, both for shelter to the plants, and for training fruit trees against. One of these gardens, of two acres, was entirely allotted to the culture of melons, and these were all of the warty rock cantalupe kind, and were growing under hand-glasses, in the manner of our late cucumbers for pickling.

The season had been so unfavourable for wall-fruit, that (as the gardener told me) all these gardens had yielded less than a dozen peaches and nectarines.

The fruit was sent regularly to the Royal Family in Paris.