The Last Day of a Condemned Man Read online

  Furthermore, that one may not be deceived, this question of capital punishment is developing daily. Before long all society will think as we do.

  Let the most obstinate criminal lawyers pay attention to the fact that, for a century, capital punishment has been moderating. It is almost a mild thing now, which shows it is growing weak, and feeble, and approaching death. Torture has disappeared. The wheel has gone. The gallows has gone. Strange fact that the guillotine is a step toward progression.

  Monsieur Guillotine was a philanthropist.

  Yes, the horrible, voracious Themis, with her long teeth, the Themis of Farinace and Vouglaus, Delancre and Isaac Loisel, Oppede and Machauet, is growing weak. She is wasting away and dying.

  La Greve wants her no more. La Greve wants to reinstate herself. The old drinker of blood acted nobly in July. She wants now to lead a better life, and to prove herself worthy of her last beautiful act. She, who for three centuries has been prostituted to every scaffold, is covered with shame. She blushes at her old career. She wishes to forget her evil name. She repels the hangman. She washes her pavement.

  Even now capital punishment is carried on outside of Paris. And let us emphasize the fact here, that to go outside of Paris is to go beyond civilization.

  The symptoms all appear to be favorable to us. It seems, too, that this hideous machine is disheartened and glum, this monster of wood and iron, which is to Guillotine what Galatea is to Pygmalion. Looked at from one standpoint, the fearful executions which we have described above are good signs. The guillotine hesitates. She fails to strike. The old scaffold for capital punishment is out of order.

  The infamous machine will leave France, we are sure; and if God is willing, she will leave it limping, for we shall try and give her some hard blows.

  Let her seek hospitality elsewhere, from some barbarous people; not in Turkey, which is growing civilized, nor among the savages, who do not want her (the Parliament of Otahiti has just abolished capital punishment); but let her descend several more rounds of the ladder of civilization; let her go to Spain or to Russia.

  The social edifice of the past rests on three columns,--the priest, the king, and the hangman. Long ago a voice cried: "The gods will it!" Later a voice shouted: "The kings will it!" It is time now for a third voice to cry: "The hangman wills it!"

  Thus the ancient structure of society will fall, stone after stone; thus Providence will complete the crumbling of the past.

  To those who regret the gods, we may therefore say, "God remains." To those who regret the laws, "The country remains." To those who regret the hangman, we have nothing to say.

  Nor will order disappear with the hangman; do not think this. The arch of future society will not fall for not having this hideous keystone. Civilization is nothing but a series of successive changes. Which one are you going to help? The change of punishment. The gentle law of Christ will penetrate our laws after a while, and will shine through them. Crime will be looked upon as a malady; and it will have its physicians in place of your judges, its hospitals instead of your prisons. Liberty and health will be one. They will pour balm and oil where the iron and fire have left scars. It will be simple and sublime. The cross will take the place of the gallows. That is all.

  March 15, 1832.

  THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED MAN

  A COMEDY

  (Apropos of a Tragedy5) Dramatis Personae

  MADAME DE BLINVAL A STOUT GENTLEMAN

  A CHEVALIER A THIN GENTLEMAN

  ERGASTE LADIES

  A WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS A LACKEY

  A PHILOSOPHER

  A Drawing-room

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS (reading).

  "Upon the morrow steps were heard within the forest-glade;

  A dog barked low beside the stream; and when the little maid

  Returned, alas! her bower to find, her heart was filled with

  fear;

  For o'er the ancient citadel sad groans assailed her ear;

  And never more, oh, gentle maid! oh, gentle maid Isaure!

  Shall sing thy minstrel-lover true upon his sweet mandore."

  THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE. Bravo! Charming! Ravishing!

  (Applause.)

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. There is an indefinable mystery in the closing words which brings tears to one's eyes.

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS (modesty). The Climax is veiled.

  THE CHEVALIER (shaking his head). Mandore, minstrel, there is romanticism in that!

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS. Yes, sir; but reasonable and true romanticism. What can you expect? We must make some concessions.

  THE CHEVALIER. Concessions! concessions! That is how one loses style. I would give all the romantic stanzas that have ever been written for this one quatrain:--

  "From Pinde and Cythera teasing,

  Did Sir Bernard discover,

  That Saturday, the Art of Lover,

  Would sup a' the Art of Pleasing!"

  There is true poetry! The art of Loving supping on Saturday with the art of Pleasing! That is fine! But to-day it is the mandore , the minstrel. We no longer write fugitive poetry. If I were a poet, I would write fugitive poems; but I am not a poet.

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS. And yet, funeral poems--

  THE CHEVALIER. Fugitive poems, sir. (Aside to MADAME DE BLINVAL.) Moreover, chatel (citadel) is not French; it should be castel.

  A GUEST (to THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS). Allow me to offer a suggestion, sir. You say the ancient citadel, why not the Gothic?

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS. Gothic is not used in poetry.

  THE GUEST. Ah! that is different.

  THE WRITER OF FUNERAL POEMS (continuing). You know, sir, one must keep within bounds. I am not one who wishes to change French verse, and bring back the epoch of Ronsard and Brebeuf. I am a romanticist, but in moderation. So, with the emotions--I like them gentle, dreamy, melancholy, never bloody and horrible. Let the climax be veiled. I know there are some fools with mad imaginations--By the way, ladies, have you read the latest novel?

  THE LADIES. Which one?

  THE POET. The Last Day--

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. No more, sir, I beg! I know the book you mean. The title alone makes me nervous.

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. It affects me in the same way. It is a frightful book. I have it here.

  THE LADIES. Oh! let us see it. (The book is handed around.) A GUEST (reading). The Last Day of a--

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. O madame, spare us!

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. It really is a dreadful book, it gives one the nightmare and makes one ill.

  A LADY (aside). I must read it.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. We must admit that morality is growing more depraved every day. Great God, the horrible idea! to develop, study, and analyze, one by one, without an omission, every physical and moral sensation of a man condemned to die. Is it not dreadful? Do you understand, ladies, how any one could write such a thing, or how any one could read it if it were written?

  THE CHEVALIER. It is the height of impertinence.

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Who is the author?

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. There is no name signed to the first edition.

  THE POET. It is the same one who has already written other novels, the titles of which I forget just now. The first begins at the Morgue and ends at La Greve. In every chapter there is an ogre who eats a child.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Have you read it, sir?

  THE POET. Yes, sir; the scene is laid in Iceland.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. In Iceland, how frightful!

  THE POET. Besides these, he has written odes, ballads, and I don't know what else, full of monsters who have corps bleus (blue bodies).

  THE CHEVALIER (laughing). Corbleu! That would make a tremendous verse.

  THE POET. Besides these, he has published a drama--so it is called--in which this fine line is found:--

  "To-morrow, the twenty-fifth of June, one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven."

  A GUEST. Ah, what a
verse!

  THE POET. It could be written in figures, you see, ladies:--

  "Tornorrow, June 25, 1657."

  (He laughs. They all laugh.)

  THE CHEVALIER. The poetry of the present day is certainly peculiar.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Why, that man does not understand versification. What is his name?

  THE POET. His name is as hard to remember as it is to prounce. It has in it something of the Goth, the Visigoth, and the Ostrogoth. (He laughs).

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. He is a dreadful man.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. An abominable man.

  A YOUNG LADY. Some one who knows him told me--

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Do you know some one who knows him?

  A YOUNG LADY. Yes; and he said that the man is very gentle and simple in his habits, that he lives quietly, and spends his days playing with his little children.

  A POET. And his nights in dreaming of works infernal.--That is strange; there is a verse which I made unconsciously. But it is a verse, just the same:--

  "And his nights in dreaming of works infernal,"

  with a good caesura. There is only the corresponding rhyme to find. I have it! Sepulchral!

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Quidquid tentabat dicere, versus erat. (Whatever he uttered was a poem.) THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. You say that the author in question has little children? Impossible, madame, when he has written such a story as this, such a frightful thing!

  A GUEST. What object has this novel?

  THE POET. I have no idea.

  A PHILOSOPHER. It seems to me that it favors the abolishment of capital punishment.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. I tell you it is horrible!

  THE CHEVALIER. So it is a duel with the hangman?

  THE POET. He denounces the guillotine.

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Yes, I can see that; here are invectives.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Not at all. There are scarcely two pages on capital punishment. It is all sensations.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. There he is wrong. The subject deserves discussion. A drama, a novel, proves nothing. Moreover, I have read the book, and it is very bad.

  THE POET. It is detestable! Is that art? It is going beyond bounds; it is speaking out one's mind too freely? Then, this criminal, if we only knew about him! But no. What did he do? We have no idea. Perhaps he was a very bad fellow. One should not rouse interest in one whom we do not know about.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. One has no right to make his reader suffer physically. When I see a tragedy, I expect a murder. Well, I am not affected. But this novel makes your hair stand on end and your flesh creep. It gives you bad dreams. I spent two days in bed for having read it.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. Besides, the book is cold, premeditated.

  THE POET. The book! The book!

  THE PHILOSOPHER. Yes. And as you have just remarked, sir, true art does not consist in that sort of thing. I am not interested in an abstraction, a pure entity. I do not find a personality equal to mine. And then the style is neither simple nor clear. It is archaic. That was what you said, was it not?

  THE POET. No doubt, no doubt. We must avoid personalities.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. The prisoner is not interesting.

  THE POET. How could he be? He has committed a crime, and feels no remorse. I would make him just the opposite. This would be the story of my prisoner. Born of honest parents. Good education. Love. Jealousy. A crime, which was not a crime. Then remorse, remorse, much remorse. But human laws are implacable; he must die. Then I would argue the question of capital punishment. There!

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Ah! Ah!

  THE PHILOSOPHER. Pardon me. The book, as Monsieur understands it, proves nothing. The particular does not rule the general.

  THE POET. Well, better still, why not have taken for the hero, Malesherbes, for instance?--the virtuous Malesherbes? His last day, his punishment? Oh, fine and noble thought! Then I would have cried, I would have shivered, I would have longed to mount the scaffold with him.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. Well, I should not.

  THE CHEVALIER. Nor I. At heart he was a Revolutionist.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. The scaffold of Malesherbes would prove nothing against capital punishment in general.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Capital punishment! Of what use is it to discuss that? How does capital punishment concern you? This author must be of low birth, to give us the nightmare from such a subject.

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Ah! yes; he must have an evil heart.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. He compels us to look into the prisons, into the galleys, into Bicetre, all of which is extremely disagreeable. We know, of course, that such places exist; but why should society trouble itself about them?

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. The lawmakers were not children.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. And yet, if the subject were presented in a true light--

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. That is exactly what is lacking, truth. How can a poet be expected to know about such things? One must at least be a public prosecutor. I read in a newspaper a criticism of this book, in which it said that the prisoner did not utter a word when his death-sentence was read; now, I once saw a prisoner, and when the sentence was read, he gave a great shriek. You see the difference.

  THE PHILOSOPHER. Allow--

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Yes, gentleman, the guillotine, the grave, is poor taste; and to prove this, you see that the book is such as corrupts good taste, and makes you incapable of pure, fresh, naive emotions. When will the defenders of clean, wholesome literature rise? I should like to be a member of the French Academy, and perhaps my public addresses might make me eligible. Here is Monsieur Ergaste, who is a member. What does he think of the Last Day of a Condemned Man?

  ERGASTE. Indeed, sir, I have neither read it, nor do I intend to. Yesterday I was dining with Madame de Senange, and the Marquise de Morival spoke of it to the Duke of Melcourt. They said that there were personalities in it against the magistracy, and especially against President d'Alimont. Abbe Floricour was indignant also. It seems that it contains a chapter against religion, and one against the monarchy. If I were a public prosecutor--

  THE CHEVALIER. Yes, indeed, public prosecutor! and the charter! and the liberty of the press! Yet you will acknowledge that it would be disagreeable for a poet who wishes to abolish capital punishment. Ah, ah! under the ancient regime any one who published a novel against punishment--! But since the fall of the Bastile one can write anything. Books do a frightful amount of harm.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. Frightful. Everything was quiet; we were agitated over nothing. From time to time a head was cut off in France, here and there, two a week at the most, but without noise, without scandal. Nothing was said. No one thought anything of it. And then--this book--a book which gives one a dreadful headache!

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. As though a jury would convict any one after having read it.

  ERGASTE. It hurts one's conscience.

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Ah! Books! Books! Who would have thought that of a novel?

  THE POET. There is no doubt but that books are poisoning society.

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Not to mention the language, which these romanticists revolutionize also.

  THE POET. Let us make a distinction, sir; there are romanticists and romanticists.

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Such poor taste, poor taste.

  ERGASTE. You are right. It is poor taste.

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. There is nothing more to say.

  THE PHILOSOPHER (leaning over a lady's chair). Subjects are discussed in this book which are no longer mentioned even in the Rue Mouffetard.

  ERGASTE. Ah! the wretched book!

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. Oh! do not throw it into the fire. It is hired.

  THE CHEVALIER. Talk of these times! Since our day everything is depraved. Do you remember our day, Madame de Blinval?

  MADAME DE BLINVAL. No, Monsieur, I do not.

  THE CHEVALIER. We were the gentlest, the gayest, the wittiest people. There were always beautiful fetes and pretty verses. It was charming. Is t
here anything more beautiful than Monsieur de La Harpe's madrigal on the great ball given by Madame de Mailly, the marshal's wife, in seventeen hundred and--the year of Damiens' execution.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN (sighing). Those were happy days! Now the morals are horrible as well as the books. Boileu says in his beautiful lines:--

  "And the fall of the arts follows the fall of the morals."

  THE PHILOSOPHER (aside to THE POET). Do they have supper here?

  THE POET. Yes, very soon.

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Now they want to abolish capital punishment; and with this object in view they write novels, cruel, immoral, and in poor taste, like the Last Day of a Condemned Man and I don't know what else.

  THE STOUT GENTLEMAN. My dear fellow, let us talk no more of this atrocious book; and, by the way, tell me, what are you going to do about that man whose appeal we refused three weeks ago?

  THE THIN GENTLEMAN. Oh, be patient a while! I am on a vacation here. Do let me have a breathing space. Wait until I return. If I am away too long, I will write to my substitute--

  A SERVANT (entering). Madame, supper is served.

  Chapter I

  Bicetre

  CONDEMNED TO DIE!

  For five weeks this thought has dwelt within me, and this alone, congealing my blood, bearing me down beneath its weight!

  Once, and it seems as if it were years and not weeks ago, I was like other men. Each day, each hour, each moment, was full. My mind was young and active, and it delighted in fancies. One after another they unrolled before me, and I saw the rough and scanty stuff of which life is made, with its embroidery of never-ending arabesques. There were young girls, fine copes belonging to bishops, battles won, theatres full of life and light, and then young girls again, and nocturnal promenades beneath the kindly arms of chestnut-trees. My fancy always pictured fetes. I could dream of what pleased me, for I was free then. Now I am a captive. My body is in chains, in a dungeon. My mind is imprisoned in an idea--a horrible, bloody, wild idea! I have but one thought, one conviction, one certainty: I am condemned to die!