It was carnival time, and the rumor had pretty generally been carried abroad that he was to die on that morning.A friend, who accompanied me, came many miles, through the mud and dark, in order to be in at the death.We set out before light, floundering through the muddy Champs Elysees; where, besides, were many other persons floundering, and all bent upon the same errand.We passed by the Concert of Musard, then held in the Rue St.Honore; and round this, in the wet, a number of coaches were collected.The ball was just up, and a crowd of people in hideous masquerade, drunk, tired, dirty, dressed in horrible old frippery, and daubed with filthy rouge, were trooping out of the place: tipsy women and men, shrieking, jabbering, gesticulating, as French will do;parties swaggering, staggering forwards, arm in arm, reeling to and fro across the street, and yelling songs in chorus: hundreds of these were bound for the show, and we thought ourselves lucky in finding a vehicle to the execution place, at the Barriere d'Enfer.
As we crossed the river and entered the Enfer Street, crowds of students, black workmen, and more drunken devils from more carnival balls, were filling it; and on the grand place there were thousands of these assembled, looking out for Fiaschi and his cortege.We waited and waited; but alas! no fun for us that morning: no throat-cutting; no august spectacle of satisfied justice; and the eager spectators were obliged to return, disappointed of their expected breakfast of blood.It would have been a fine scene, that execution, could it but have taken place in the midst of the mad mountebanks and tipsy strumpets who had flocked so far to witness it, wishing to wind up the delights of their carnival by a bonnebouche of a murder.
The other attempt was equally unfortunate.We arrived too late on the ground to be present at the execution of Lacenaire and his co-mate in murder, Avril.But as we came to the ground (a gloomy round space, within the barrier--three roads lead to it; and, outside, you see the wine-shops and restaurateurs' of the barrier looking gay and inviting,)--as we came to the ground, we only found, in the midst of it, a little pool of ice, just partially tinged with red.Two or three idle street-boys were dancing and stamping about this pool; and when I asked one of them whether the execution had taken place, he began dancing more madly than ever, and shrieked out with a loud fantastical, theatrical voice, "Venez tous Messieurs et Dames, voyez ici le sang du monstre Lacenaire, et de son compagnon he traitre Avril," or words to that effect; and straightway all the other gamins screamed out the words in chorus, and took hands and danced round the little puddle.
O august Justice, your meal was followed by a pretty appropriate grace! Was any man, who saw the show, deterred, or frightened, or moralized in any way? He had gratified his appetite for blood, and this was all.There is something singularly pleasing, both in the amusement of execution-seeing, and in the results.You are not only delightfully excited at the time, but most pleasingly relaxed afterwards; the mind, which has been wound up painfully until now, becomes quite complacent and easy.There is something agreeable in the misfortunes of others, as the philosopher has told us.Remark what a good breakfast you eat after an execution; how pleasant it is to cut jokes after it, and upon it.This merry, pleasant mood is brought on by the blood tonic.
But, for God's sake, if we are to enjoy this, let us do so in moderation; and let us, at least, be sure of a man's guilt before we murder him.To kill him, even with the full assurance that he is guilty is hazardous enough.Who gave you the right to do so?--you, who cry out against suicides, as impious and contrary to Christian law? What use is there in killing him? You deter no one else from committing the crime by so doing: you give us, to be sure, half an hour's pleasant entertainment; but it is a great question whether we derive much moral profit from the sight.If you want to keep a murderer from farther inroads upon society, are there not plenty of hulks and prisons, God wot; treadmills, galleys, and houses of correction? Above all, as in the case of Sebastian Peytel and his family, there have been two deaths already; was a third death absolutely necessary? and, taking the fallibility of judges and lawyers into his heart, and remembering the thousand instances of unmerited punishment that have been suffered, upon similar and stronger evidence before, can any man declare, positively and upon his oath, that Peytel was guilty, and that this was not THE THIRD MURDER IN THE FAMILY?