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REPORT OF THE DEATH AND EXECUTION OF LAURENT GUYON, ETIENNE

HYVERT, FRANÇOIS AMIET, ANTOINE LEPRÊTRE. Condemned the twentieth

Thermidor of the year VIII., and executed the twenty-third

Vendemiaire of the year IX.

To-day, the twenty-third Vendemiaire of the year IX., the

government commissioner of the tribunal, who received at eleven

of the evening the budget of the Minister of Justice, containing

the minutes of the trial and the judgment which condemns to

death Laurent Guyon, Etienne Hyvert, François Amiet and Antoine

Leprêtre;—the decision of the Court of Appeals of the sixth

inst., rejecting the appeal against the sentence of the

twenty-first Thermidor of the year VIII., I did notify by letter,

between seven and eight of the morning, the four accused that

their sentence of death would take effect to-day at eleven o’clock.

In the interval which elapsed before eleven o’clock, the four

accused shot themselves with pistols and stabbed themselves with

blows from a poinard in prison. Leprêtre and Guyon, according

to public rumor, were dead; Hyvert fatally wounded and dying;

Amiet fatally wounded, but still conscious. All four, in this

state, were conveyed to the scaffold, and, living or dead, were

guillotined. At half after eleven, the sheriff, Colin, handed in

the report of their execution to the Municipality for registration

upon the death roll:

The captain of gendarmerie remitted to the Justice of the Peace

a report of what had occurred in the prison, of which he was a

witness. I, who was not present, do certify to what I have learned

by hearsay only.

(Signed) DUBOST, Clerk. Bourg, 23d Vendemiaire of the year IX.

Ah! so it was the poet who was right and not the historian! The captain of gendarmerie, who remitted the report of the proceedings in the prison to the Justice of the Peace, at which he was present, was Nodier’s uncle. This report handed to the Justice of the Peace was the story which, graven upon the young man’s mind, saw the light some forty years later unaltered, in that masterpiece entitled “Souvenirs de la Révolution.” The entire series of papers was in the record office. M. Martin offered to have them copied for me; inquiry, trial and judgment.

I had a copy of Nodier’s “Souvenirs of the Revolution” in my pocket. In my hand I held the report of the execution which confirmed the facts therein stated.

“Now let us go to our magistrate,” I said to M. Milliet.

“Let us go to our magistrate,” he repeated.

The magistrate was confounded, and I left him convinced that poets know history as well as historians—if not better.

ALEX. DUMAS.