The hearers bowed with the same impulse.
“But,” proceeded Suleau, “there are others who try to find means to kill the hale while they had a thousand to send the ailing out of this life. I beg your Majesty to let me deal with them?”
“What would you do? decapitate them painlessly, or at least merely give a slight coolness round the neck?” inquired the King, quoting Dr. Guillotin’s recommendation of his invention.
“Sire, I should like all of these inventors to have the first experiment tried on themselves. I do not complain that Marigny was hanged on the Gibbet of Montfaucon which he built. I am not asking, I am not even a judge; the probability is that I shall have to take my revenge on Dr. Guillotin in the columns of my paper. I will give him a whole number and propose that the machine shall bear his name for eternity, the Guillotine!”
“Ha, ha, the Guillotine!” exclaimed the men, without waiting for express permission to laugh.
“I shall assert, also, that life is divided not extinguished by this process,” continued Suleau; “why may not the sufferer feel pain in the head and the trunk after being cut in two?”
“This is a question for medical men. Did none of us here witness the experiment this very morning at Bicetre madhouse?” asked the King.
“No, no, no!” cried many voices.
“Sire, I was there,” said one grave voice.
“Oh; it is you? Dr. Gilbert,” said the sovereign, turning.