CHARLOTTE CORDAY AND THE EXECUTIONER.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—In a notice of Miss van Alstine's "Life of Charlotte Corday" (Spectator, May 31st) the writer says :—" We do not remember to have seen before any notice of the punishment inflicted on the brutal assistant who struck the cheek of the decapitated head. He was imprisoned for eight days. The author says nothing about the tradition that a blush was seen upon the cheek when the blow was struck."
In the "Reminiscences of a Regicide" recently published, the autobiographer, Sergent Marceau, Administrator of Police during the Revolution, says, in allusion to the blush, which was fully believed in at the time, for Sergent's notes were written on the spot,—" I did not see this horror ; but as soon as I heard of it I wrote to the President of the Tribunal, Hermand, to ask that, in the sitting of the next day, the executioner might be sentenced to a severe and public punishment for this crime against humanity. The judges thought as I did, and he was imprisoned." (See "Reminis- cences of a Regicide," pp. 291-292. Chapman and Hall.)—I
am, Sir, &c., M. SIMPSON. 14 Cornwall Gardens, South Kensington, S. W., June 2nd.
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