At the hour appointed the criminal is brought
to the scaffold, fastened to the board, placed at right angles with the
fatal instrument, the head protruding thro' the groove, which embraces the
neck; the executioner pulls a cord, the axe descends and the head of the
criminal falls into a basket. The whole ceremony of the execution does not
take three minutes when the criminal once arrives at the foot of the
guillotine. There is none of that horrible struggling that takes place in
the operation of hanging.
June 21st, 1816.
The ceremony of the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Berri passed off
quietly enough. Several people, it is true, were arrested for seditious
expressions, but no tumult occurred. A great apprehension seemed to prevail
lest something should occur, but the gendarmerie and police were so
vigilant that all projects, had there been any, would have proved abortive.
[59] Virgil, _Georg._, I, 35.--ED.
[60] Colonel Gwyllym Lloyd Wardle was the celebrated exposer of the scandal
in 1808-9, when the mistress of the Duke of York was found to be
trafficking in Commissions. He had retired from active service in
1802, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel.
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