The Enquirer

Bell's Weekly Messenger.

London, July 5--14.

GREATNESS OF MIND.

Private letters from Paris positively affirm that Georges was offered his pardon both at the Bicetre and in the Conciergerie, but upon such terms, that neither his loyalty, nor honor, nor religion, could permit him to accept. Carried to the place of execution, in passing the Chatelet some persons exclaimed Vive Georges! and others applauded him; but the police agents arrested them immediately. Georges bowed to several ladies on the quay, who, from the windows of different houses saluted him with their handkerchiefs. Upon the scaffold, he desired to address the people, but was not permitted. General Murat, who was present, demanded what he had to say; his answer was, that he desired it to be known to his countrymen, that he died as he had lived, faithful to his God and his King; and as a true Christian, forgave even his murderer, Bonaparte, whose conversion he prayed for, and that he might in his last moments meet death with equal hope, consolation, and tranquility. It had been ordered that Georges should be executed the last; but a rumour had reached his fellow sufferers, that he would be pardoned upon the scaffold. He demanded of Murat, as a favour, to be beheaded first, to set them an example how loyal men should die. This was consented to.--Before the executioner tied George's hands, he embraced his confessor, and then, looking up to Heaven, he called out loudly, Vive le Roy! vivent les Bourbons! All the other sufferers died with equal firmness, devotion, and loyalty.--Ducorps and Le Mercier went to the town hall just by, only to dictate their wills, and were executed twenty minutes later on that account.--Their last words were Vive le Roi Louis XVIII!

On the day of execution no less than 25,000 men were under arms, for fear that the people should release the prisoners. Not only the way from the Conciergerie to the Palace de Greve was lined with two ranks of soldiers, but all the bridges and streets in the neighbourhood were occupied by troops of all descriptions, with even flying artillery. Two thousand Italian grenadiers of the ci-devant Consular Guard, kept a guard on the Palace de Greve, and 100 gens d'armes d'élite escorted the prisoners, and surrounded the scaffold.

A law in the former reign of terror ordered all persons convicted of plotting against the lives of the representatives of the people, or against the existence of the republic, to be executed dressed in a red chemise, or rather frock. Bonaparte desired this law to be now revived; but desisted, upon the observations in Les Nouvelles a la Main of the 1st Messidor, that within a month after this law had been proclaimed, and sixty pretended conspirators and supposed assassins of Robespierre had been guillotined in red shirts, this republican tyrant perished himself (they were murdered in June, 1794, and he in July the same year.)