“I do not boast of extraordinary squeamishness; I have seen too much blood in my life not to be callous. If what I feel is not pity, it must be a derangement of my nerves. Perhaps I am punished by the Almighty for my cowardly obedience to mock justice. For some time I have been troubled with terrible visions. I am taken with fever as soon as I enter the Conciergerie ; it is like fire flowing under my skin. Abstemious as I am, it seems to me as if I were intoxicated — the people who are around me, the furniture, the walls, dance and whirl around me, and my ears are full of strange noises. I struggle against this feeling, but in vain. My hands tremble, and tremble so that I have been compelled to give up cutting the hair of the doomed prisoners. They are before me weeping and praying, and I cannot convince myself of the reality of what is going on. I lead them to death, and I cannot believe that they are going to die. It is like a dream which I strive to dispel. I follow the preparations for the tragedy, and I have no idea what is to occur next, and I discharge my functions with the mechanical regularity of an automaton. Then comes the thump of the knife which reminds me, of the horrible reality. I cannot hear it now without a shudder. A kind of rage then takes possession of me. Forgetting that I ought to blame myself more than others, I abuse the gendarmes who, sabre in hand, have escorted the victims ; I abuse the people who look on without raising a finger in their defence ; I abuse the sun which lightens all this. At length I leave the scaffold, disposed to weep, although I cannot find a tear.”
— Journal of Henri Sanson, executioner during the French Revolution (via cobblerofmessina)
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