Page:Compromises (Repplier).djvu/225

 Rh sanctimoniousness. "I doubt," wrote her confessor, the Abbé Piron, "whether in all her life she had ever been so patient under the hands of her maid." Some natural scorn she expressed at sight of the crowd straining with curiosity to see her die: "Un beau spectacle, Mesdames et Messieurs!"—but this was all. The executioner swept off her head with one swift stroke; then, hastily opening a flask, took a deep draught of wine. "That was a good blow," he said to the Abbé. "At these times I always recommend myself to God, and He has never failed me. This lady has been on my mind for a week past. I will have six Masses said for her soul." Surely such a headsman ennobled in some degree the direful post he bore.

If a murderess, inconceivably callous and cruel, could die with dignity, what of the countless scenes where innocence was sacrificed to ambition, and where the best and noblest blood of Europe was shed upon the block? What of the death of Conradin on a Neapolitan scaffold? In the thirteenth century, boys grew quickly into manhood, and