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This contempt for the popular will was sufficiently well shown the following month, in his despatch to the Garibaldian Commander of Molise: “Publish that I cause to be shot all peasants taken with arms in their hands. I have this day commenced such executions.” The most he could contemplate was an attack by the Garibaldians, and the probability of some partial insurrections in the interior.
I shall never be able to believe that that furnace was placed there for the use of the living, it not being in such a place, or of such a kind, as to be of service to them. Everything, on the contrary, combines to persuade me that it was made use of for horrible deaths, and to consume the remains of the victims of inquisitorial executions.
In his attitude towards superstition, Charles I resembled the later rather than the earlier James I. No reign up to the Revolution was marked by so few executions. It was a time of comparative quiet.
It is to be regarded exclusively as illustrating the shocking character of the whole procedure of the witchcraft prosecutions, and not as a personally harsh or cruel thing, that Noyes or Mather was unwilling to pray with persons, at their public executions, who stood convicted of being confederates of the Devil, and who, refusing to confess, retained that character to the last.
In successfully overthrowing Robespierre the Convention and Committee of Public Safety had rid the country of the only man, who, owing to his popularity and his reputation for uprightness, could have prolonged the Reign of Terror. There was an immediate reaction after his death, for the country was weary of executions.
Consequently, the faubourg and the Rue Saint Antoine were crowded, for the population of Paris in those days of great executions was divided into two categories: those who came to see the condemned pass these were of timid and mild hearts, but philosophically curious and those who wished to see the condemned die these had hearts that hungered for sensation.
It is indeed possible that his estimate was too high. He had a careless habit of confusing condemnations with executions that makes us suspect that in this estimate he may have been thinking rather of the number of convictions than of the hangings. Yet his figures are those of a man who was on the ground, and cannot be lightly discounted.
Individual condemnations and executions abounded after these general measures; between the 2d of August and the 31st of December, 1559, eighteen persons were burned alive for open heresy, or for having refused to communicate according to the rites of the Catholic church, or go to mass, or for having hawked about forbidden books.
Executions in Canada are so rare, even for murder, that many atrocious criminals are found within these walls men and women who could not possibly have escaped the gallows in England. At twelve o'clock I followed Mr. M to the great hall, to see the prisoners dine.
The number of executions of Boers, as distinguished from the execution of Cape rebels, has been remarkably few in a war which has already lasted twenty-six months.
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