"That is the headsman," answered M. Ragon, calling the executioner—the executeur des hautes oeuvres—by the name he had borne under the Monarchy.
"Oh! my dear, my dear! M. l'Abbe is dying!" cried out old Madame Ragon. She caught up a flask of vinegar, and tried to restore the old priest to consciousness.
"He must have given me the handkerchief that the King used to wipe his brow on the way to his martyrdom," murmured he. "... Poor man!... There was a heart in the steel blade, when none was found in all France..."
The perfumers thought that the poor abbe was raving.
PARIS, January 183l.