Yet first, taking his scissors, she
herself cut off a lock and gave it to Hauer for remembrance. When
Sanson would have bound her hands, she begged that she might be
allowed to wear gloves, as her wrists were bruised and cut by the
cord with which she had been pinioned in Marat's house. He
answered that she might do so if she wished, but that it was
unnecessary, as he could bind her without causing pain.
"To be sure," she said, "those others had not your experience,"
and she proffered her bare wrists to his cord without further
demur. "If this toilet of death is performed by rude hands," she
commented, "at least it leads to immortality."
She mounted the tumbril awaiting in the prison yard, and,
disdaining the chair offered her by Sanson, remained standing, to
show herself dauntless to the mob and brave its rage. And fierce
was that rage, indeed. So densely thronged were the streets that
the tumbril proceeded at a crawl, and the people surging about
the cart screamed death and insult at the doomed woman. It took
two hours to reach the Place de la Revolution, and meanwhile a
terrific summer thunderstorm had broken over Paris, and a
torrential rain had descended upon the densely packed streets.
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