Page:History of the Guillotine.djvu/66

 "Paris.—They made yesterday the first trial of the little Louison, and cut off a head. One Pelletier—not him of the Actes des Apôtres—was the subject of the melancholy experiment. I never in my life could bear to see a man hanged; but I own I feel a still greater aversion to this species of execution. The preparations make one shudder, and increase the moral suffering; as to the physical pain, I caused a person to attend, who repeats to me that it was the matter of the twinkle of an eye. The people seemed to wish that M. Sanson had his old gallows and were inclined to say, —

Rendez-moi ma potence de bois,

Rendez-moi ma potence. The date of articles in a paper published the 27 th would be the 26 th, and of course the &apos;yesterday' of this extract would be the 25th; and we have found passages to the same effect in one or two other journals; and yet it is not absolutely certain that Pelletier was the first living body that the guillotine struck; for though he was certainly the first who suffered at