The Abbe Lemire, Deputy from the North, the only member of the Chamber who had been slightly wounded by the explosion of the bomb, urged the pardon of the condemned man. The socialist Deputies likewise decided to appeal to the pardoning power of the President of the Republic and signed the following petition: "The undersigned, members of the Chamber of Deputies which was made the object of the criminal attempt of December 9, have the honor to address to the President of the Republic a last appeal in favor of the condemned."[10] It has long been the custom in France not to punish an abortive crime with the death penalty, and it was generally believed that Vaillant's sentence would be changed to life imprisonment. President Carnot, however, refused to extend any mercy, and Vaillant was guillotined. A few days after the execution of Vaillant, a bomb was thrown among some guests who were quietly assembled, listening to the music, in the cafe of the Hotel Terminus. Several persons were severely wounded. After a fierce struggle with the police, Emile Henry was arrested. In the trial it was learned that he had been responsible for a number of other explosions that had taken place in the two or three years previous. He had attempted to avenge the miners who had been on strike at Carmaux by blowing up the manager of the company. He had deposited the bomb in the office of the company, where it was discovered by the porter. It was brought to the police, where it exploded, killing the secretary and three of his agents. Henry was a silent, lonely man, wholly unknown to the police. Mystical, sentimental, and brooding, he believed that the rich were individually responsible for misery and social wrong. "I had been told that life was easy and with abundant opportunity for all intellects and all energies," he declared at his trial, "but experience has shown me that only the cynics and the servile can make a place for themselves at the banquet. I had been told that social institutions were based on justice and equality, and I have seen about me only lies and deceit. Each day robbed me of an illusion. Everywhere I went I was witness of the same sorrows about us, of the same joys about others. Therefore I was not long in understanding that the words which I had been taught to reverence--honor, devotion, duty--were nothing but a veil concealing the most shameful baseness....