occurred at executions during the Terror. Nowadays
assassins and poisoners are decapitated more decently.
Many improvements in the guillotine have been made.

At the spot where the King's head fell, a long rivulet
of blood streamed down the planks of the scaffold to the
pavement. When the execution was over, Samson threw
to the people the King's coat, which was of white molleton,
and in an instant it disappeared, torn by a thousand hands.

At the moment when the head of Louis XVI. fell, the
Abbé Edgeworth was still near the King. The blood
spirted upon him. He hastily donned a brown overcoat,
descended from the scaffold and was lost in the crowd.
The first row of spectators opened before him with a sort
of wonder mingled with respect; but after he had gone a
few steps, the attention of everybody was still so
concentrated upon the centre of the Place where the event had
just been accomplished, that nobody took any further notice
of Abbé Edgeworth.

The poor priest, enveloped in his thick coat which concealed
the blood with which he was covered, fled in bewilderment,
walking as one in a dream and scarcely knowing
where he was going. However, with that sort of instinct
which preserves somnambulists he crossed the river,
took the Rue du Bac, then the Rue du Regard and thus
managed to reach the house of Mme. de Lézardière, near
the Barrière du Maine.