“The Countess had by this time been brought into the house; the wound was directly on her left breast, extremely large, and she died without uttering a single word. The servants of the house were all collected last night, but no cause for so horrid an act was at that time known—all was but conjecture.
“The following circumstances in so extraordinary a case may be, however, worth while relating. The Count, it appears, always kept a brace of pistols loaded in his bedroom and a small dirk. About a month ago the Countess and the servants heard the report of a pistol upstairs, and were in consequence greatly alarmed. When one of the latter, a female, went upstairs and looked into her mistress’s room, it was full of smoke, and she screamed out. On its clearing away she saw Lawrence standing, who told her nothing was the matter—he had only fired one of his master’s pistols. It afterwards appeared that he had fired into the wainscot; it was loaded with ball, and the ball from the pistol is yet to be seen.
“The Count and Countess were about sixty years of age. The latter was highly accomplished, a great proficient in music, and greatly admired for her singing in fashionable parties. There is no reason whatever to believe that Lawrence was insane. Only about ten minutes previous to his committing this deed of blood, he went over to an adjoining public-house and took a glass of gin. He had lived only three months in the family, and, report says, was to be discharged in a few days.
“The Count and Countess had resided in Barnes for four or five years, and have left an only son, who, we understand, is at present in this country, studying the law.
“Besides his house on Barnes Terrace, Count d’Antraigues had a town establishment, No. 7, Queen Anne Street, W. He was fifty-six and the Countess fifty-three years of age. The Count had eminently distinguished himself in the troubles which have convulsed Europe for the last twenty-two years. In 1789 he was actively engaged in favour of the Revolution, but during the tyranny of Robespierre he emigrated to Germany, and was employed in the service of Russia. At Venice in 1797 he was arrested by Bernadotte, at the order of Bonaparte, who pretended to have discovered in his portfolio all the particulars of the plot upon which the 18th Fructidor was founded. The Count made his escape from Milan, where he was confined, and was afterwards employed in the diplomatic mission of Russia at the Court of Dresden. In 1806 he was sent to England with credentials from the Emperor of Russia, who had granted him a pension, and placed great dependence upon his services. He received here letters of denization, and was often employed by the Government. The Countess was the once celebrated Mme. de Saint-Huberty, an actress of the Théâtre Français. She had amassed a very large fortune by her professional talents.”{327}
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE “NATIONAL RAZOR.”
The Rue de l’Arbre Sec—Dr. Guillotin—Dr. Louis—The Guillotine—The First Political Execution.
THE street in which Mme. de Saint-Huberty lived, besides suggesting her fatal end, is connected with a whole series of tragedies. The Street of the Dry Tree—Rue de l’Arbre Sec—recalls, by its picturesque name, the fact that here at one time stood the tree from which hung, as fruit, the bodies of capital offenders. In ancient days, and until the great epoch of the Revolution, hanging was the ordinary punishment in France for felony, though an exception was made in favour of high-born criminals, whose aristocratic origin entitled them to be decapitated. The modern method, indeed, of execution in France is primarily due to a Republican determination not to recognise inequalities, even in the manner of the death-punishment. It is certain that Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, in introducing the too-celebrated invention which is named after him, was actuated by a spirit of impartiality in the first instance, and by humanity in the second.
With the legend, perhaps, of Phalaris and his bull running in their heads, many Frenchmen persist, even to this day, in believing that the inventor of the guillotine was the first victim to fall beneath its blade. As a matter of fact, he survived for upwards of twenty years the introduction of that machine which earned for him so odious a reputation that in the autobiography he left behind not a word, significantly enough, is said about the guillotine.
We have seen that under the ancient régime one of the privileges of the nobleman was, in case of execution, to have his head chopped off—a method of punishment held to be more honourable than hanging, which, reserved for plebeian offenders, lent to the execution a character of infamy. To die at the end of a rope was not only a blot on the memory of the offender, but involved his whole family in lasting disgrace.