Defilement

“ Oh! clemency, forgiveness!—Do the traitors forgive? Are the conspirators clement? scoundrels, parricides multiply unceasingly; they spring up from underground, they swarm in from all our frontiers,—young men, who would have done better to perish with our armies, old men, children, women, with every mark of innocence, purity, and grace. They are offered up a sacrifice,—and more victims are ready for the knife!... You can see, Élodie, I must needs renounce love, renounce all joy, all sweetness of life, renounce life itself. ”

“ The really effective weapons of the Holy Office, the real curses with which it afflicted the people, can be looked for in its dungeons and its confiscations, in the humiliating penances of the saffron crosses, and in the invisible police with which it benumbed the heart and soul of every man who had once fallen into its hands.
A few words will suffice as to the repulsive subject of the execution itself. When the populace was called together to view the last agonies of the martyrs of heresy, its pious zeal was not mocked by any ill-advised devices of mercy. ”

“ There it frowns all day in the midst of a sickened population. And at night, the officers, reinforced, drag forth the wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight—they drag him forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life—calling upon God, calling upon his father and mother—for like a very child had this man become in the prospect of death—they drag him forth to execution. ”

“ In fortification, the tread of a banquette is the upper and flat surface on which the soldier stands whilst firing over the parapet.
Treason. A general appellation to denote not only offenses against the king and government, but also that accumulation of guilt which arises whenever a superior reposes confidence in a subject or inferior, between whom and himself there subsists a natural, a civil, or even a spiritual relation; and the inferior so abuses that confidence, so forgets the obligations of duty, subjection, and allegiance, as to destroy the life of any such superior or lord. ”

“ They think it no more a crime to kill a captive taken in war, than we do to kill an ox; nor to eat human flesh, than we do to eat mutton.
When I had considered this a little, it followed necessarily that I was certainly in the wrong in it; that these people were not murderers in the sense that I had before condemned them in my thoughts, any more than those Christians were murderers226 who often put to death the prisoners taken in battle; or more frequently, upon many occasions, put whole troops of men to the sword, without giving quarter, though they threw down their arms and submitted. ”

“ Modern refinement has introduced the scaffold and the guillotine as the least revolting form of execution. Soldiers who disobey orders, have the honor of being shot, while vulgar criminals are hanged. ”

“ It may without proof of guilt inflict upon individuals torments unthinkable by fire and flaying, mutilations that are nameless. It may call men, women and children from their beds and beat them to death with cudgels. In the light of day it may assail the very strongholds of law in the heart of a populous city, and assassinate prisoners of whose guilt it knows nothing. ”

“ The scenes of destruction and murder which we frequently passed in the villages and on our daily march, were dreadful. Houses and furniture burnt, men and women mutilated and murdered, lying about in the most disgusting and barbarous manner, some with their throats cut, some with their eyes and ears gone, and others cut up and most dreadfully exposed; all this for revenge, because they would not, or could not, supply the French army with provisions, and in the hope that these savage proceedings would terrify others into instant compliance. ”

“ We listen to the clank of chains, and overhear the whispers of assassins. We mark the barbarous dissonance of mingled rage and triumph in the yell of an infuriated mob; we see the dismal glare of their burnings, and scent the loathsome steam of human victims offered in sacrifice. ”

“ Deep were the consultations of the infidel leaders concerning the destiny of their formidable captive. The slaughter actually wrought by his hand had been so fearful, the ravages produced among their armies by his policy so unbounded, that a large majority were in favor of his instant execution; nor could human ingenuity devise, or brute cruelty perform, more hellish methods of torture than were calmly discussed in that infuriate assembly. ”

“ Scribbling on the walls meant capital punishment for a man, banishment for a boy; quarrelling, on whatever pretext, was visited with confiscation of estate; drawing a sword within the precincts of the palace, exposed a man to execution or suicide; even to break into a run within one of the courtyards was a grave offence, and if a soldier of the guard acquired an evil moral reputation he was liable to be killed or exiled. ”

“ Our comrades had been slaughtered in a most inhuman and brutal manner, and slaves were trampling over their mangled and bleeding corpses. Revenge must have fired every heart, and strung every arm with nerves of steel, for the herculean task of blood. ”

“ How can they do that dreadful, deliberate murder—for I can call it nothing else—when the defenceless man stands by his coffin on the brink of his open grave, and the hands of his comrades send to his bosom the deadly messengers! It is not right to take life away ”

“ Like the Paris mobs that followed shouting, in the wake of the tumbrels bound for the guillotine, these men came trooping back to the scene of execution, and as they came they bellowed hoarsely and they waved their arms.
Men react powerfully to environment; they put on rough ways with rough clothes. ”

“ Sir, can it be said that the rebellion has gone entirely unpunished?
You may object that the loyal people, too, were subjected to terrible sufferings; that their sons, too, were slaughtered by tens of thousands; that the mourning of countless widows and orphans is still darkening our land; that we are groaning under terrible burdens which the rebellion has loaded upon us, and that therefore part of the punishment has fallen upon the innocent. ”

“ And the town heralds everywhere read out to the sound of trump and tambourine proclamations decreeing to all heretics, men and women and girls, death by fire to those who did not abjure their error, by the rope to those who should abjure. Women and girls would be buried alive, and the executioner should dance upon their bodies. ”

“ The king said that desertion was so common that it was necessary to devise some punishment that would strike terror into the hearts of offenders, and therefore he would condemn the culprit to decapitation, and would himself choose the comrade who must perform the execution. ”

“ With such a system of military despotism no man’s life was safe, and indeed many men were accused, arrested, imprisoned, tried, convicted and put to death without ever knowing the charges against them. ”

“ The different punishments for offences are these, increasing with the enormity of the crime:—Fines, the stocks, imprisonment, labour in chains, flogging, branding, maiming, pagoda slavery, and death. The last, which seldom occurs but for murder and treason, is inflicted by decapitation, drowning, or crucifixion. ”

“ Finding that the promised pardon and mercy were synonymous with murder, arson, and rapine, such a revulsion of feeling had taken place that the authors of these cruelties were literally sleeping on a volcano; and where patriotism had so lately been invoked in vain, hope of revenge was now turning every man, woman, and child into either an open or a secret foe to the despoilers of their homes. ”

“ The offender is led before his regiment, and after the rehearsal of his disgrace to his fellow-soldiers, his arms are pinioned, his eyes bandaged, and an open coffin stands ready to receive his lifeless body. The file of soldiers aim at the one fluttering heart, and the lightning-like death ends the dreadful scene. ”

“ There falleth so continually before the eyes of our heart a fearful imagination of this terrible thing: his mighty strength and power, his high malice and hatred, and his incomparable cruelty, with robbing, spoiling, burning, and laying waste all the way that his army cometh; then, killing or carrying away the people thence, far from home, and there severing the couples and the kindred asunder, every one far from the other, some kept in thraldom and some kept in prison and some for a triumph tormented and killed in his presence ”

“ The English Parliament declared that public executions were debauching the whole British people. Mercy was drowned in blood during the reign of terror, and the whole future of French civilization is stained and poisoned by the memory of the guillotine. ”

“ I may indeed suffer by accident; but thousands of wretched victims are at this moment marked for sacrifice, and are massacred with an execrable imitation of rule and order: a ferocious and cruel multitude, headed by chosen assassins, are attacking the prisons, forcing the houses of the noblesse and priests, and, after a horrid mockery of judicial condemnation, execute them on the spot. The tocsin is rung, alarm guns are fired, the streets resound with fearful shrieks, and an undefinable sensation of terror seizes on one's heart. I feel that I have committed an imprudence in venturing to Paris ”

“ Indeed, his crime is manifest and he hath incurred death penalty; and I have deferred it only by reason of the greatness of the offence; for, an I do this with him and my proof against him be strengthened, my heart is healed and the heart of my whole folk; and if I slay him not to-day, his slaying shall not escape me to-morrow.” Then he bade fetch the youth who, when present between his hands, prostrated to him and blessed him; whereupon quoth the king, “Woe to thee! How long shall the folk upbraid me on thine account and blame me for delaying thy death? ”

“ But the penal part of military discipline, with its red-hot irons, its floggings, and its various forms of death, is too repulsive to do more than glance at as testimony of the cruelty and despotism that have never been separated from the calling of arms. ”

“ When attached to the stake, he looked round on his executioners, their instruments of torture, and the assembled multitude of spectators, with all the complacency of heroic fortitude; and, after enduring for some hours, with composed mien and triumphant language, a series of barbarities too atrocious and disgusting to be recited, his sufferings were terminated by the interposition of a French lady, who prevailed with the governor to order that mortal blow, to which human cruelty has given the name of coup de grace or stroke of favour. ”

“ The Terror was increasing, with its attendant crimes, and the victims were becoming more numerous. One day when we were speaking of this, and were exhorting each other to prepare to be among their number, I said to them with a sort of presentiment, 'If you go to the guillotine, and God gives me the strength, I will accompany you.' They took me at my word, adding with eagerness, 'Do you promise it?' I hesitated a moment. ”

“ Because, forsooth, I exchanged civilities with one I held an honourable enemy, you dare to expect my interest on behalf of a regicide! I vow, sir, every man who even witnessed that most abominable and unnatural murder should swing, did it depend on me. Go to those of your own party, who have had the wit to secure their own necks; maybe they may also have the skill to juggle your kinsman out of jail. ”

“ Suppose those three felons, the halters round their neck, should ask also, "Why, what is that?" You would say, "They are the soldiers just come back from war. For two long years they have been hard at work, burning cities, plundering a nation, and butchering whole armies of men. Sometimes they killed a thousand in a day. By their help, the nation has stolen seven hundred thousand square miles of land!" Suppose the culprits ask, "Where will you hang so many?" "Hang them!" is the answer, "we shall only hang you. It is written in our Bible that one murder makes a villain, millions a hero. ”

“ The reprieve was read by one of the Chaplains of the army, after a long harangue to the soldiers, setting forth the enormity of the crime charged upon the prisoner, repeatedly using this sentence, "crimes for which men ought to die,"—which did much to further the resentment of the troops already raised to a high pitch. ”

“ The cruel multitude, united with the soldiery, felt such a desire of slaughtering those they intended to despoil, that the sheriff, repenting of the order, revoked it, but in vain; fanaticism and robbery once set loose will satiate their appetency for blood and plunder. ”

“ Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all punished, it selects some of them at hazard, to hear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are not more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a convenient mode of military execution, we know not; but we solemnly protest against the introduction of such a principle into the philosophy of history. ”

“ Besides, with us there is never, as with you, cool and deliberate murder perpetrated on the part of the assembly. There is here no turning up of the thumb. It is all honorable fighting, and honorable killing. ”

“ When the officers and sub-officers, who thought only of victory and perhaps promotion, would have had us show mercy when the fight was over, these men, born and trained leaders, encouraged us to slay and spare not, and showed us an example of fierce brutality which we, angry on account of the murder and mutilation of our comrade, only too faithfully followed. ”

“ The story of what took place during those bloody days of retribution is too long to tell, and it must suffice to sum it up in the frightful death roll of fourteen thousand persons—six thousand of them killed in open fight, eight thousand executed in bitter revenge. ”