Rossel, attended by his lawyer and his clergyman, asked to be allowed to command the fire. Merlin refused. Rossel wished to shake hands with him, in order to do homage to his sentence. This was refused. During these negotiations Ferré and Bourgeois remained motionless, silent. In order to put a stop to Rossel's effusions an officer was obliged to tell him that he was prolonging the torture of the two others. At last they blindfolded him. Ferré pushed back the bandage, and, fixing his eyeglass, looked the soldiers straight in the face.
The sentence read, the adjutants lowered their sabres, the guns were discharged. Rossel and Bourgeois fell back. Ferré remained standing; he was only hit in the side. He was again fired at and fell. A soldier placing his chassepot at his ear blew out his brains.
On a gesture of Merlin a flourish of trumpets burst forth, and, emulating the customs of the cannibals, the troops defiled in triumph before the corpses. What cries of horror the bourgeoisie would have uttered if before the executed hostages the Federals had paraded to the sound of music!
The bodies of Rossel and Ferré were claimed by their families; that of Bourgeois disappeared in the common grave of the St. Louis Cemetery. The people will not disassociate his memory from that of Ferré, for they both died with the same courage for the cause they had served with the same devotion.
The Liberal press reserved its tears for Rossel. Some courageous provincial papers did honour to all the victims, and devoted to the hatred of France the Commission of Pardons—"the Commission of Assassins," as a deputy, Ordinaire junior, said in the Assembly. Prosecuted before juries, all these journals were acquitted.
Two days after the execution of Satory, the Commission of Pardons ordered Gaston Crémieux to be killed. Six months had elapsed since his condemnation, and this long delay seemed to make the murder impossible. But the rural Commission wanted to avenge his famous speech of Bordeaux. On the 30th November, at seven o'clock in the morning, Gaston Crémieux was led to the Prado, a large plain bordering the sea. He said to his guardians, "I will show how a Republican should die." He was placed against the same stake where a month before the soldier Paquis had been shot for going over to the insurrection.
Gaston Crémieux wished to have his eyes unbandaged and to command the fire. They consented. Then addressing himself to the soldiers, "Aim at the chest; do not touch my head. Fire! Vive la Répub...." The last word was cut short by death. As at Satory, the dance of the soldiers round the corpse followed.
The death of this young enthusiast made a deep impression in the town. Registers placed at the door of his house filled in a few hours with thousands of signatures. The revolutionists of Marseilles will not forget his children.
The same day the sixth court avenged the death of Chaudey. This had been ordered and superintended by Raoul Rigault alone. The men who formed the platoon were abroad. Préau de Védel, the principal accused, then imprisoned in Ste. Pélagie for a common offence, had only held the lantern. But the jurisprudence of the officers attributed to simple agents the same responsibility as to the chiefs. Préau de Védel was condemned to death.
On the 4th December, in the hall of the third court, a kind of phantom, pale-faced and sympathetic, appeared. It was Lisbonne, who for six months had dragged about his wounds of the Château d'Eau. The same before the court-martial as during the Commune and at Buzenval, this bravest of the brave gloried in having fought, and only denied the accusations of pillage. Other judges would have been proud to spare such an enemy; the Versaillese condemned him to death.