In that savage age such a thing constituted one of the most noteworthy spectacles, not only for the common people, but among the higher classes.

A number of the most pious old men, a throng of young girls, and the most cowardly women, who dreamed the whole night afterwards of their bloody corpses, and shrieked as loudly in their sleep as a drunken hussar, missed, nevertheless, no opportunity of gratifying their curiosity.

"Ah, what tortures!" many of them would cry, hysterically, covering their eyes and turning away; but they stood their ground for a good while, all the same.

Many a one, with gaping mouth and outstretched hands, would have liked to jump upon other folk's heads, to get a better view.

Above the crowd towered a bulky butcher, admiring the whole process with the air of a connoisseur, and exchanging brief remarks with a gunsmith, whom he addressed as "Gossip," because he got drunk in the same alehouse with him on holidays.