Star.
London, England, 1831-09-27 00:00:00

TIIR EXECUTIONER OF PARIS.

Nothing of the sublimity of horror is associated)
in the mind of an Englishman with the mention,
of ",Jack Ketch ;" we even denote him by'a pleis-1
sant sobriquet : we feel no convulsive shudder
when we hear of his wheteabout ;* we do not cross
over the way when we meet in Fleet-street.
rWe regard him, with the exception of his drunk-
enness—some trifling brutality of taanner—a re-
lit'', too prominent expression of contempt for the
refinements of society," taste, Shakspeaie, and the
Musical glasses," as a mighty respectable profee-
mr—in his way. Perhaps the familiarity which
our laws permit between him and the public,
may have detracted from all that should have beeb
imposing or impressive about him. But " l'ese-
cuteus des hautes mums" is regarded in France
in a far different and more formidable light. Al-
though a resident in the centre of the French ca-
pital, he is never seen but in the public perform-
ance of his dreadful duty :—a degree of cautious
and not impolitic mystery is attached to him; mai
such are the feelings his very name excites, that
the mere announcement of his presence, in the

common walks of life, would render the very 800.
levarde sacred to himself alone ; would disperse
the myriads of barricaders in the noontide
of their patriotic travail;—would calm the tre-
mendous clamours of the Chamber of Deputies,
and prorogue or dissolve it without the solemnity
of proclamation. Should he deign to usher in
the Duc de Bourdeauz, he might clear a way for
him to the Tuileries and the throne without dread
of competition or resistance. The mandates of the
Procurter-generals himself, which summon him
to his duty, are deposited in a boucke, de fer, in-
serted in the large and massive iron grating that
guards the entrance to his dwelling ; for perhaps
not one could be found, daring and reckl es enough
of popular opinion, to consign them in person to
their terrible addteas.—He reads and obeys. In
the darkness and depth of night, with his assist-
ants, he arranges the maillrials of death : no word
is spoken as he labouri in his awful calling ; the
feeble light, which enables him tp prepare the ma-
chinery, glimmering on the scaffold, renders the
guards that surround it barely discernible ; while
they, motionless and dumb, seem rather phantoms
of the night than breathing men. If allowed
to trace such an official to the solitude of his
shunned domicile- -to see him seated, Crusoe-like,
beside his hearth, and to consider the economy of
his unprofessional hours—something might be
learned of good or ill which might point a moral,
if it would not adorn a tale. To him it has been
given to know the last words, looks, and actions of
many, unobscured by affectation or deceit ;—the
secret affections of numbers long concealed from
the world's view have been laid open, once and
briefly, yet prominently, to his sight. He has
witnessed the eloquence of remorse or of inno-
cence, at the hour of death, when the retrospect of
a lengthened life of sin or misfortune has been
comprehended perhaps in one last sentence, one
parting word or look, more emphatic than all that
" saint or sophist ever writ."
Grave reflections these; but they were passing
through my mind as I rung at the bell of a small
rem. house in the Rue des Marais du Temple ;
the door being opened, I was ushered into a low
well-furnished room, wherein a man, of the age of
sixty, was employed touching the keys of a piano
with his right hand, while his left arm embraced a
child about ten years old, of remarkable beauty,
whose features strongly resembled those of him
who held her. The old man was Henri Sanson,
the public executioner of Paris ! Having pre-
viously adapted my address to one whom I had
imagined in my mind as bearing in his traits the
repulsive record of his trade, I had to re-order my
ideas, and assume a different manner. For, as I
contemplated his mind and open countenance, in
which manly beauty was not wanting, I felt my-
self bound to acknowledge. by a corresponding
courtesy of demeanour, the salutations of a man of
the world, wholly free from embarrassment or affec-
tation. The intention of composing a treatise on the
various public punishments adopted at different
epochs of French legislation, was offered by me as an
apology for the unaccustomed intrusion to which
he was subjected. He politely acceded to my re-
quest for information, and conducted me to a
chamber containing a large and well-selected li-
brary. Here, all the awkwardness I had pre-
viously felt, as to discourse with the singular being
who stood before me, was at once dismissed; and
the titles of the various volumes which I examined
soon led to free conversation, during which my
host displayed great taste and judgment in his ob-
servations on the various works I brought under
his notice : expressing himself as one would do,
who had profited largely by what he. had read.
It was clear that his books formed his chief so-
ciety : abandoned by the world, he can
here hold converse with Ilse illustrious dead,
and can reder himself familiar with the senti-
ments of the good and great, of the present or a past
age, without dread of the expression of that scorn
disgust, and horror that would attend any attempt
at personal communication with his fellow-men.
Sanson loves to talk and talks exceedingly well ;
but, in the whole course of a visit of two hours,
which was prolonged by the interest excited in me
by this extraordinary person ; he forgot not for a
moment the distance placed between him and so-
ciety in general : he showed that he was fully
aware of his situation, and does not affect to des-

pise the feeling it is calculated to produce in
others ; but, having made up his mind to sustain
it, calls up all his philosophy (for it may well be
termed so) to support him in an existence without
the pale of social intercourse. Among his books
my eye fell on " Le dernier Jour d' to con-
dantne."
Reverting, however, to the professed ob-
ject of my visit, he unlocked• the door
of another chamber, in which the various
instruments of extreme punishment, formerly
used, are yet preserved by hint. It is, truly,
a fearful museum: and the examination of its
contents gave rise b many inquiries on my part,
which led to many curious anecdotes which he re-
counted, particularly as to the last moments of the
condemned. I could not but feel the contrast, of
the office of the man with the sensibility he dis-
played in his narration, and the humanity which
be evinced as he adverted to the dreadful circum-
stances in which he had borne so prominent a part.
It is unnecessary to quote them ; but all he related
of the sufferers, in the hour of death, had some-
thing singularly forced, unnatural, and painful
Castaing e•as believed generally to be innocent of
the crime for c bleb he was condemned, yet, RP

Sanson told me, he confessed- his guilt upsi the
scaffold. He showed me the sabre with which the
Marquis de Lally bed been beheaded. It wet pre-'
pared for the occasion, and three were cast befere
one could be found likely to answer the purpose.
It was usual at that period for young men of fashion
to assist (as the term is) on the scaffold at the last,
hour of the condemned, as they did on the stage at
theatrical performances. The crowd upon that
occasion was great, and the Apace limited; the arm
of the executioner was jostled, at the moment the
sabre was balanced above his head, the blow was
diverted from, the neck of the unhappy victim, and
a common cutlass was resorted to by one of the
executioner's assistants, to end the agonies of the
sufferer. A notch in the blade of the sabre is
exactly of the size, and in the form of a human
tooth.

I have said that Samoa, during the conversa-
tion, gave proofs of no ordinary humanity. He
summons up his resolution to the dreadful task
he has to perform, and his firmness fails him not
at the moment of duty. Yet, as soon as he re-
ceives the fatal order of the Procuresir Generale,
he has always a visible and violent struggle with
his feelings ere he brings himself to obey. He at
!eagth proceeds to prepare, with apparent coolness,
the machine of destruction and all the apparatus of
death, but as soon as his sad work is finished,
his countenance becomes pale and death-like—he
returns to his solitary hoes. and shuts himself in
his chamber, is here he long refuses nourishment
or conversation, and wangling from his eyes when
induced to advert to the circumstances of an exe-
cution.

The mass bad impressed me with feelings de;
cidedly distinct from those which I anticipated as
the result of my communication with him, and as
I took leave of him (I know not whether from for-
getfulness or otherwise) I held out my hand. His
countenance suddenly changed as he drew back
several steps from me ; it expressed astonishment
and confusion—all his ease of manner had Bed
at once, and I was again reminded of "la mai*
?ante."

Sanglc_
To save the subject of this paper from a charge
of vulgarity, by the world in general, let it be
remembered that, during the Irish rebellion,
a gentleman of name, family, and fortune and
the high sheriff of a county, bad, if I recollect, the
thanks of both houses of parliament voted to hint
for acting as executioner, when no other could be
found, to a formidable criminal ; that in the year
1790, on the poposition of Maton Delavarenne,
seconded by Mirabeau himself, it was especially
decreed, by the French legislature, that the public
executioner should be comprehended• in the numbet
of citizens, and that formerly, in the state of Wur-
temburg, after having exercised hit profession a
certain number of years, the headsman was ho-
noured by having conferred upon him the degree of
Doctor of Laws.