The criminal stood, with bared head, and listened with frigid resignation to the sentence, his hands clasped together, silent, his eyes and hands raised to Heaven.
"Have you anything to say why sentence should not be carried out?" asked the judge.
Castaing sadly shook his head, the head so soon to feel the chilly grip of death.
"No, monsieur," he said in a deep but gentle voice,—"no, I have nothing to say against the carrying out of the sentence decreed against me. I shall know how to die, although it is a great misfortune to die, hurried to the grave by such a dire fate as has overtaken me. I am accused of having basely murdered my two friends, and I am innocent.... Oh! indeed, I repeat it, I am innocent! But there is a Providence: that which is immortal in me will go forth to find you, Auguste, Hippolyte. Oh yes, my friends" (and here the condemned man stretched out both his arms to heaven most impressively),—"oh yes, my friends, yes, I shall meet you again, and to me it will be a happy fate to rejoin you. After the accusation brought against me, nothing human can affect me. Now I look no longer for human pity, I look only for Heaven's mercy; I shall mount the scaffold courageously, cheered by the thought of seeing you again! Oh! my friends, this thought will rejoice my soul even when I feel.... Alas!" continued the accused, passing his hand across his neck, "alas! it is easier to understand what I feel than to express what I dare not utter...." Then, in a lower tone, "You have decided on my death, messieurs; behold, I am ready to die." Then, turning to his counsel, Maître Roussel, he said, "Look, look, Roussel, turn round, come here and look at me.... You believed in my innocence, and you defended me believing in that innocence; well, it is even so, I am innocent; take my farewell greetings to my father, my brothers, my mother, my daughter!" Then, without any pause, he went on, addressing the amazed spectators: "And you, young people, you who have been present at my trial; you, my contemporaries, will be present also at my execution; you will see me there animated with the same courage as now, and if the shedding of my blood be deemed necessary to society, well, I shall not regret that it has to flow!"
Why have I related the details of this terrible trial in such fulness? Is it in order to awake gloomy memories of the past in the hearts of the members of those two unhappy families who may still be alive? No! It was because, by reason of the reports connecting poor Fleuriet with Castaing, I was present at the final tragedy; I begged a day's holiday from M. Oudard in order to see the end; I was present among the number of those young people whom the condemned man, in a moment of exaltation, of delirium, perhaps, invited to his execution; and when I saw that man so exuberantly young, so full of life, so eager after knowledge, condemned to death, bidding farewell to his father, his mother, his brothers, his children, society, creation, light, in those poignant tones and miserable accents, I said to myself in inexpressible anguish of heart, "O my God! my God! suppose this man should be another Lesurques, another Labarre, another Calas!... O my God! my God! suppose this man be not guilty!"
And, then and there, before the tribunal which had just condemned a man to death, I vowed that, no matter to what position I might attain, I would never look upon it as justifiable to punish a sentient, suffering human being like myself by the deprivation of life.
No, I was not present at the execution; for, I must admit, I could not possibly have borne such a spectacle; and now twenty-eight years have flown by between Castaing's execution and Lafourcade's, and they have been full of such cases, in spite of the penalty of death, which is meant to be a deterrent and does not deter! Alas! how many wretched criminals have passed along the route that led from the Conciergerie to the place de Grève, and now leads from la Roquette to the barrière de Saint-Jacques, during those twenty-eight years!
On 6 December, at half-past seven in the morning, Castaing was led from Bicêtre to la Conciergerie. A moment later, the gaoler entered his cell and told him of the rejection of his petition. Behind the gaoler came the abbé Montes.
Castaing then turned his attention to his prayers, praying long and earnestly. He did not utter a single word during the whole of the time he spent in the vestibule of the Conciergerie, while they were preparing him for his execution.