Welker, one of the worst and most inhuman of his class, who had murdered a pretty child of eight, showed the most abject cowardice. It was necessary to carry him bodily to the scaffold, and place him in position under the knife. A corpse was really guillotined, for he was already dead with fright, and had pardon come at the eleventh hour it could not have benefitted him. Menesclon has left a name more execrable than Welker, for his victim was an infant of four, whom he was believed to hold in strong affection, lavishing gifts upon her constantly. One day she went into his room, and the child was never seen again. After many denials that he knew anything about her, a neighbor was drawn to his room by the nauseating smell of burning flesh, and on forcing his door he was found stirring up a blazing fire in his stove. Menesclon was barely saved from the fury of the people when the story became known. He was interrogated, and gave his own account of the affair. He had invited the child into his room to give her some flowers. But she irritated him by crying, and, being unable to quiet her, he suddenly seized her by the throat and choked her. When she was dead he thrust the body between his two mattresses, and slept the whole night through. Early next morning he set himself to get rid of the horrible evidence of his crime in the manner already described. This miserable creature was one of the lowest type of his class. He had been graduated in the lowest schools of vice, beginning as a child at La Petite Roquette, to which he had been committed at the instance of his parents as perfectly unmanageable at home. He passed thence into the navy, after having been the despair of many workshops in which he had been employed, at last having assaulted and robbed his father. He had developed into an undersized weak creature with a hideous, pimpled face, low forehead, furtive manner and foxy eyes. He was quite indifferent at his trial, showed no remorse for his crime, and rarely answered the questions put to him, which threw into strong relief the enormity of his conduct. Service in Senegal had left him with an incurable deafness, which heightened his stupidity. He gazed without flinching at the _pièces de conviction_ lying on the table before him. Close by was a copy-book filled with verses, for he had poetical aspirations and was a bit of an artist. His cold-blooded unconcern culminated in his last answer to the question why he had committed the crime. “I can’t tell you,” he replied, “but you are at liberty to do the same to me.” Menesclon exhibited the same impassibility at the last hour. He heard his fate with his hand to his ear, the better to catch the words, and merely said, “_Ah, bon!_” when he understood; and then walked quietly to the scaffold.