Again she said, “’Tis crime gives the shame—it is not the block.” This is the verse of the great French poet Corneille, who was her ancestor.
Tried at eight in the morning, and knowing she should die at mid-day, she said, upon leaving the prison, “Madame Richard, pray let my breakfast be ready upon my return, or we shall not have time to take it together.”
At her trial, it being maintained that the nature of the blow which killed Marat had been that of one accomplished in the use of the dagger, she cried, “Miserable wretch—he takes me for an assassin!”
The counsel for her defence urged that she only pleaded that in killing Marat she was doing a public good.
The jury directly found her guilty, and ordered her property to be confiscated.
“Sir,” she said to her defender, “you have done well. But I cannot pay you, for you have heard how my property has been seized. However, I do you this honor; I pray that you will pay the few pieces of silver I owe to the prison people—they ought to be paid.”
Going back to her prison, where the painter finished her portrait, she conversed about painting.
A knock at the cell-door, and the executioner entered, carrying scissors with which to cut away her hair, and the red garments worn by the condemned on their way to execution.
“Sir,” she said to the painter, “I can only offer you a lock of hair.”
And taking the gaoler’s scissors, she cut a lock of the wonderful hair.