France in the Nineteenth CenturyLatimer, Elizabeth Wormeley
History
France in the Nineteenth Century
Latimer, Elizabeth Wormeley
France -- History -- 1789-1900
The next day, Thursday, May 25, the order came. "Citizens," said
the messenger who brought it, "pay attention, and answer when your
names are called. Fifteen of you are wanted." As each was named,
he stepped out of the ranks and took his place in the death-row.
Paul Seigneret was one of them. He seemed perfectly calm, and gently
pressed the hand of his Seminary friend who was not summoned.
In the courtyard they were joined by thirty-five ex-policemen,
so-called hostages like themselves. The execution was to take place
in the Rue Haxo, at the farthest extremity of Belleville, and the
march was made on foot, so that the victims were exposed to all the
insults of the populace. It has been said that when they reached
the Rue Haxo, where they were placed against a wall, Paul was thrown
down while attempting to defend an aged priest, and was maltreated
by the crowd; but this account was not confirmed when, four days
later, the bodies were taken from the trench into which they had
been thrown: Paul's showed no sign of violence. His eyes were closed,
his face was calm. His cassock was pierced with balls and stained
with blood. He is buried at Saint-Sulpice.
His father received the news of his death calmly. He wrote: "Let
us bear our poor child's death as much like Christians and as much
like men as we can. May his blood, joined to that of so many other
innocent victims, finally appease the justice of God," But when,
shortly afterwards, Charles died of an illness brought on by excessive
fatigue in serving the ambulances, the father sank under the double
stroke, and died fifteen days after his last remaining son.
From the death of the youngest and the humblest of these ecclesiastical
hostages, we will turn now to that of the venerable archbishop, and
to his experiences during the forty-eight hours that he passed at
La Roquette, after having been transferred to it from Mazas.
With studied cruelty and insolence, a cell of the worst description
was assigned to the chief of the clergy in France. It had been
commonly appropriated to murderers on the eve of their execution.
There was barely standing-room in it beside the filthy and squalid
bed. The beds and cells of the other priests were at least clean,
but this treatment of the archbishop had been ordered by the Commune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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