The doors of the conciergerie did not open until seven in the evening.  By the light of torches the faces of the condemned were seen in the cart, moving above the crowds thronging the narrow streets.  The usual route from the prison to the scaffold was by the Rue du Gros-Horloge, and this funeral march by torchlight and execution at midnight in December must have been a terrifying event.  The crowd, kept at a distance, probably saw nothing but the glimmering light of the torches in the misty air, and the shadowy forms moving on the platform.  According to the Journal de Rouen of the next day, Flierle mounted first, then Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d’Epine and Le Hericey who took part with him in the attack on June 7th.  Lefebre “passed” sixth.  The knife struck poor Gautier-Boismale badly, as well as Alexandre Buquet, who died last.  The agony of these two unfortunates was horrible, prolonged as it was by the repairs necessary for the guillotine to continue its work.  The bloody scene did not end till half-past eight in the morning.

The next day, December 31st, the exhibition on the scaffold of Mme. de Combray, Placene, Vannier, and Lerouge, all condemned to twenty-two years’ imprisonment, was to take place.  But when they went to the old Marquise’s cell she was found in such a state of exasperation, fearful crises of rage being succeeded by deep dejection, that they had to give up the idea of removing her.  The three men alone were therefore tied to the post, where they remained for six hours.  As soon as they returned to the conciergerie they were sent in irons to the House of Detention at the general hospital, whence they were to go to the convict prison.

The Marquise had not twenty-two years to live.  The thought of ending her days in horrible Bicetre with thieves, beggars and prostitutes; the humiliation of having been defeated, deceived and made ridiculous in the eyes of all Normandy; and perhaps more than all, the sudden comprehension that it had all been a game, that the Revolution would triumph in the end, that she, a great and powerful lady—­noble, rich, a royalist—­was treated the same as vulgar criminals, was so cruel a blow, that it was the general impression that she would succumb to it.  It is impossible nowadays to realise what an effect these revelations must have produced on a mind obstinately set against all democratic realities.  For nearly a month the Marquise remained in a state of stupefaction; from the day of her condemnation till January 15th it was impossible to get her to take any kind of nourishment.  She knew that they were watching for the moment when she would be strong enough to stand the pillory, and perhaps she had resolved to die of hunger.  There had been some thought—­and this compassionate idea seems to have originated with Licquet—­of sparing the aged woman this supreme agony, but the Procurer-General showed such bitter zeal in the execution of the sentence, that the prefect received orders from Real to proceed.  He writes on January 29th:  “I am informed of her condition daily.  She now takes light nourishment, but is still extremely feeble; we could not just now expose this woman to the pillory without public scandal.”