The Dedalus Book of French Horror: The 19th Century by Terry Hale Read Free Book Online Page B

pain, without any distinct sense of anguish, a sort of flame gushing from the eyes, assuming by degrees a blue colour, then again resolving into utter darkness, as the state of syncope succeeds. And you know this, doctor, better than anyone. If you press your finger on the brain of a man, where a piece of the skull has been removed, the man feels no pain, but merely falls asleep. Well, the same phenomenon occurs when the brain is compressed by an accession of the blood. Now, a man’s blood rushes up in a flood when he is hanged, and the brain is surcharged with it.’
    ‘True,’ said the doctor; ‘but let us return to your experiments. I long to come to your famous head, that spoke after it was cut off.’
    I fancied I heard something like a sigh issuing from M. Ledru’s chest. As for his face, there was no seeing it. The room was completely dark.
    ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘I wander from my subject, doctor; let us return to my experiments.’
    Unfortunately there was no lack of subjects.
    We were now in the Reign of Terror; they guillotined thirty or forty persons a day; and such a profusion of blood flowed in the Place de la Revolution, that they were obliged to dig a trench round the scaffold three feet in depth.
    This pit was covered over with loose boards.
    One of these boards turned over as a boy of eight or ten years old was standing on it; he fell into that hideous ditch, and was drowned.
    You need hardly be told that I said nothing to Solange as to the employment of my time on the days we did not meet; besides, I must confess that I had felt at first so strong a repugnance for those poor human mutilations, that I trembled to think of the posthumous pain that my experiments might possibly afford to the victims. But at length I had said to myself that the studies which I had given myself up to had been undertaken for the benefit of society at large; inasmuch as, if I should ever succeed to convince a body of legislators of what I myself firmly believed, I might cause the abolition of the punishment of death.
    By the end of two months I had made every imaginable experiment on the tenaciousness of life after execution. I resolved to carry out these experiments still further, if possible, by the application of electricity and galvanism.
    They put at my disposal the cemetery of Clamart, and the heads and bodies of all the sufferers.
    As fast as my experiments produced results worthy of note, I made minutes of them in writing.
    There was a small chapel in one corner of the burial-ground, which had been converted into a laboratory for my use; for you know the republic had driven the priest from his church, as well as the king from his palace.
    Here I had an electrical machine, and three or four of those instruments called stimulators .
    About five o’clock the dreadful train arrived. The bodies were cast pell-mell into the tumbrel, the heads pell-mell into the sack.
    I used to take out at random one or two heads and one or two bodies; the remainder were thrown into one common grave.
    The next day the heads and bodies on which I had tried my experiments the day before were added to the new heap of sufferers. My brother used to assist me almost always in these examinations.
    Amidst all this contact with death, my love for Solange increased every day. On her side, the poor child loved me with her whole heart.
    Often and often I had thought of making her my wife. We had frequently surveyed in our fancy the joy of such a union; but, in order to become my wife, Solange must have told her name; and her name – being that of an emigrant, of an aristocrat, of an outlaw – would have been fatal to her.
    Her father had written to her several times to hasten her departure; but she had told him our love. She had asked his consent to our marriage, and he had granted it. On that side, therefore, all went well.
    Meanwhile, amidst all these terrific trials, one still more terrific than the rest had deeply afflicted us both.
    It was the