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 Executions and Executioners. who tried Lally, and by an immense number of people, to pardon the condemned, but in vain. When the executioner presented him self with the order to gag him, he asked to be allowed to die as a nobleman of France, but his request was denied. Crowds assem bled to witness the execution, including representatives from foreign nations. Many men of the very first rank in Paris sought and obtained permission to be present on the scaffold, in order to witness the decapi-

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enough as near as now during my fifty-one years' service for the king, and do they think I am going to resist?" "Monsieur le comte, it is the custom." The executioner gave the heavy sword to his son, Charles Henri Sansón, the count laid his head on the block, the weapon was raised, but just at that moment the crowd pressed forward to see the death blow given, and the executioner was pushed so that the blow fell on the thick hair which had been

GIRONDISTS ON THEIR WAY TO THE GUILLOTINE. (From painting by Carl Piloty.)

tation of their friend. When the condemned reached the scaffold, in a cart, instead of his own carriage, as had been promised, the gag was removed, but the cords which bound his hands behind his back were kept tied. Looking at young Sansón, who was assisting his father, he said : — "Young man, free me from these bonds." "Monsieur le comte, your hands must re main behind your back." "Is it, then, necessary to tie my hands to cut off my head. I have seen death often

raised, and the skull was split. Lally jumped to his feet and was about to speak, when the elder Sansón took the sword from his son's hand, and with one blow severed the head from the body. The priest who attended the unfortunate Lally wrote to the bereaved family, " He received death like a hero, and was penitent like a Christian." The sword which the executioner used on that occasion was for many years a principal ornament of the museum of M. Sansón, the official exe cutioner, and was always exhibited to the