As I have already said, they took the chaplain seriously to task for the bad taste shown in the condemned sermon preached before Fauntleroy. This was on the text, "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," and was full of the most pointed allusions to the culprit. Fauntleroy constantly groaned aloud while the sermon proceeded, and contemporary reports declared that "he appeared to feel deeply the force of the reverend gentleman's observations," especially when the chaplain spoke "of the great magnitude of our erring brother's offence, one of the most dangerous description in a trading community." The sermon ended with an appeal to the dying man, exhorting him to penitence. This "personality," and it can be called by no other name, is carefully excluded from prison pulpit utterances on the eve of an execution. A very curious and, in its way, amusing circumstance in connection with this case was the offer of a certain Italian, Edmund Angelini, to take Fauntleroy's place. Angelini wrote to the Lord Mayor to this effect, urging that Fauntleroy was a father, a citizen: "his life is useful, mine a burthen, to the State." He was summoned to the Mansion House, where he repeated his request, crying, "Accordez moi cette grâce," with much urgency. There were doubts of his sanity. He wrote afterwards to the effect that the moment he had offered himself, an unknown assassin came to aim a blow at him. "Let this monster give his name; I am ready to fight him. I am still determined to put myself in the place of Mr. Fauntleroy. If the law of this country can receive such a sacrifice, my death will render to heaven an innocent man, and to earth a repentant sinner." Fauntleroy was not entirely dependent upon the ordinary for ghostly counsel in his extremity. He was also attended by the Rev. Mr. Springett and the indefatigable Mr. Baker, whose name has already been mentioned.[110] When led out on the morning of his execution, these two last-named gentlemen each took hold of one of his arms, and so accompanied him to the scaffold. The concourse in front of Newgate was enormous, but much sympathy was evinced for this unfortunate victim to human weakness and ruthless laws. A report was, moreover, widely circulated, and the impression long prevailed, that he actually escaped death. It was said that strangulation had been prevented by the insertion of a silver tube in his wind-pipe, and that after hanging for the regulated time he was taken down and easily restored to consciousness. Afterwards, according to the common rumour, he went abroad and lived there for many years; but the story is not only wholly unsubstantiated, but there is good evidence to show that the body after execution was handed over to his friends and interred privately.