was to be consumed between two layers of quicklime,
and to this French royalty, which at Versailles had
had a throne of gold and at St. Denis sixty sarcophagi
of granite, there remained but a platform of pine and a
wicker coffin.

Here are some unknown details. The executioners numbered
four; two only performed the execution; the third
stayed at the foot of the ladder, and the fourth was on the
waggon which was to convey the King's body to the Madeleine
Cemetery and which was waiting a few feet from the
scaffold.

The executioners wore breeches, coats in the French
style as the Revolution had modified it, and three-cornered
hats with enormous tri-colour cockades.

They executed the King with their hats on, and it was
without taking his hat off that Samson, seizing by the hair
the severed head of Louis XVI., showed it to the people,
and for a few moments let the blood from it trickle upon
the scaffold.

At the same time his valet or assistant undid what
were called "les sangles" (straps); and, while the crowd
gazed alternately upon the King's body, dressed entirely
in white, as I have said, and still attached, with the hands
bound behind the back, to the swing board, and upon that
head whose kind and gentle profile stood out against the
misty, sombre trees of the Tuileries, two priests,