'They resembled you,' I said, 'only in two things: in military courage, and in political cowardice.'
'They had,' she replied, 'perhaps more passive courage than we have.[1] My great-great-grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my great-aunt, were guillotined on the same day. My great-great-grandmother was ninety years old. When interrogated, she begged them to speak loud, as she was deaf. 'Écrivez,' said Fouquier Tinville, 'que la citoyenne Noailles a conspiré sourdement contre la République.' They were dragged to the Place de la République in the same tombereau, and sat waiting their turn on the same bench.
'My great-aunt was young and beautiful. The executioner, while fastening her to the plank, had a rose in his mouth. The Abbé de Noailles, who was below the scaffold, disguised, to give them, at the risk of his life, a sign of benediction, was asked how they looked.
'"Comme si,' he said, 'elles allaient à la messe."'
'The habit,' said Ampère, 'of seeing people die produces indifference even to one's own death. You see that among soldiers. You see it in epidemics. But this indifference, or, to use a more proper word, this resignation, helped to prolong the Reign of Terror. If the victims had resisted, if, like Madame du Barry, they had struggled with the executioner, it would have excited horror.'
'The cries of even a pig,' said Madame de Beaumont, 'make it disagreeable to kill it.'
'Sanson,' I said, 'long survived the Revolution; he made a fortune and lived in retirement at Versailles. A lady was run away with between Versailles and Paris. An elderly man, at considerable risk, stopped her horse. She was very grateful, but could not get from him his name. At last she traced him, and found that it was Sanson.'
'Sanson,' said Beaumont, 'may have been an honest man. Whenever a place of bourreau is vacant, there are thirty or forty candidates, and they always produce certificates of their extraordinary kindness and humanity. It seems to be the post most coveted by men eminent for their benevolence.'
'How many have you?' I asked.
'Eighty-six,' he answered. 'One for each department.'