[31] On the 28th of March, 1757, Damiens, who stabbed Lewis XV. was executed in the Place de Grêve, four horses were to pull his arms and legs from his body: they were fifty minutes pulling in vain, and at last his joints were obliged to be cut: he supported these torments patiently, and expired whilst the tendons of his shoulders were cutting, though he was living after his legs and thighs had been torn from his body; his right hand had previously been cut off. I was in Paris in 1768, and then, and at various times since have been assured by eye-witnesses, that almost all the windows of the square where the execution was performed were hired by ladies, at from two to ten louis each.
Mr. Thicknesse in his "Year's journey through France and Part of Spain," in a letter dated Dijon, in Burgundy, 1776, mentions a man whom he saw broke alive on the wheel by, "the executioner and his mother, who assisted at this horrid business, these both seemed to enjoy the deadly office."
I have formerly given an account of the Spanish ladies enjoying the barbarities of the bull-fights.
[32] Before, and on the 10th of August, there were not above thirty British travellers in Paris, but after that day, in less than a week it was supposed that above two thousand had from all parts of the kingdom resorted to the capital, in order to obtain passports to get away.
[33] What is here in italics is in manuscript in the original. There is no Monsieur nor Madame, the word anglais showing the gender of the person to whom the pass was granted, and is sufficient for the purpose.
[34] Poco más o menos,(a little more or less) as the Spaniards say when they are complimented with Viva V. S. mil años (may you live a thousand years.)
[35] The church of St. Louis du Louvre is at present made use of as a place of worship by protestants.
All the church lands are reverted to the nation.
In a speech which the Abbé Maury made in the National Assembly, about two years ago, he estimated the value of the property belonging to ecclesiasticks in France at two thousand two hundred millions of livres, (Deux milliards deux cens millions) near ninety-two millions sterling, the interest or produce of which, at 3¼ per cent. per annum, amounts to the three millions beforementioned.
France suffices to itself; it contains all the indigenous productions of Europe.