The French criminal makes professions of sentiment in the dock.
I extract the following lines from the trial of the vile assassins of Mme. Ballerich:
"Q. You loitered about the house and asked Mme. Ballerich for a fictitious person, in order to take stock of the premises, did you not?
"A. I do not deny that I meant to commit a theft, but a crime was far from my thoughts. A crime is going too far; I would not dishonor my family; I swear it by my mother.
"Q. You struck the fatal blow that killed the victim. When you left she was still alive?
"A. I did not look to see whether Mme. Ballerich was dead. It is bad enough to be mixed up at all in affairs of that kind! It made me feel sick to see the blood. I suffered internally; I was struck with remorse and repentance and I thought of my mother. (Here the prisoner burst into tears.)"
The English assassin, on mounting the scaffold, generally gives his friends rendezvous in the better land, and implores his Maker's pardon. The French murderer implores the pardon of his mother.
At this solemn moment both of them probably cease to be hypocrites.