They sentenced him to death, and he thanked them for the boon. “Forgive me, sublime Charlotte,” he exclaimed, “if I should find it impossible to exhibit at the last the courage and gentleness that were yours. I glory in your superiority, for it is right that the adored should be above the adorer.” Yet his courage did not fail him. Far from it, indeed; if hers had been a mood of gentle calm, his was one of ecstatic exaltation. At five o’clock that same afternoon he stepped from the tumbril under the gaunt shadow of the guillotine. He turned to the people, his eyes bright, a flush on his cheeks. “At last I am to have the happiness of dying for Charlotte,” he told them, and mounted the scaffold with the eager step of the bridegroom on his way to the nuptial altar.