Poulmann was a criminal of this type; an ultra-sanguine temperament, an athletic form, a constitution physically and morally energetic, an Herculean force of body, and a pride which the cachot du Condamné could not reduce. "It shall never be said that Poulmann changed!" was his first and last confession. A "monstrous atheist," he admitted that he had prayed for the woman who was condemned with him: "But there can be no God, since Louise also is to die." Abbé Touzè suggested that the last days of Louise might be embittered by his impenitence. This shook him for a moment, but he returned to himself: "No! Poulmann will never change."
But, alike for the weak-hearted, the indifferent, and the valiant, the way to the scaffold is rendered in these days as easy as may be. Victor Hugo's condemned man in the old, abhorred Bicêtre was turned out by day among the forçats awaiting their despatch to the bagne; they made sport of him, and ghastly jokes about the "widow" or guillotine—time-honoured amongst the criminal classes—were pointed afresh for his benefit.
His treatment at the hands of the prison officers was scarcely less callous; no one had a thought or cared that this poor wight was biding the morning when he should be rudely severed from all the living.
The position of convicts cast for death in the Newgate of the early years of this century was every jot as cruel.
It was thus under the old order; it is more commendable to-day. The tenant of the condemned cell, withdrawn from the stare of the world, is surrounded by people who have no desire but to soften the few days or weeks that remain to him. He is no longer on view at a price. He has not, like Lacenaire, the privilege of refusing the visits of duchesses, nor the indignity to endure of being exposed at a few francs per head to the indecent gaze of sensation-mongers.
In La Roquette nowadays no one can admire or contemn him until he shuffles out to meet his fate just beyond the prison door.
The condemned cell is, as in most modern prisons, both in France and England, the most comfortable quarters in the building. There are actually three cachots des Condamnés, as there are two in Newgate, and those in the Paris gaol are better lighted and rather more spacious.
The last scene of all, though it is a public execution, is no longer a feast for the ghouls. Justice is done swiftly, and the crowd sees little more than the preparation in the grey morning hours. The preparations, however, are sufficiently enticing to draw to the Place de la Roquette the riff-raff of Paris, the frequenters of the night-houses, of the boulevards, the women of the town, and some foreign amateurs of the scaffold who, like George Selwyn, would "go anywhere to see an execution."
Selwyn, by the way, would find the spectacle in the Place de la Roquette tame enough after some that he had witnessed. He went to Paris on purpose to be present at the torture of the wretched Damiens, who, after suffering unheard-of pains, was torn asunder by four horses. A French nobleman, observing the Englishman's interest in the savage scene, concluded that he must be a hangman taking a lesson abroad, and said: "Eh bien, monsieur, êtes vous arrivé pour voir ce spectacle?"—"Oui, monsieur."—"Vous êtes bourreau?" "Non, monsieur," replied Selwyn, "je n'ai pas l'honneur; je ne suis qu'un amateur."
It is after midnight that the rush begins to the spot where the scaffold is raised, and for hours the throng continues to increase in numbers and variety. All night there is feeding and drinking in the public-houses around, and, as it used to be in the Old Bailey, windows commanding a view of the scene are hired at any price.