In 1830, a Parisian bookseller named Ladvocat was on the verge of bankruptcy when a number of writers came to his aid by each contributing two or three articles to a journal to be known originally as Le Diable boiteux à Paris (The lame devil of Paris) or Paris et les moeurs comme elles sont (Paris and the morals as they are) but eventually as le Livre des Cent-et-un. The journal was published only from 1831 to 1834, but each volume, of which there were 15 in all, had between 400 and 500 pages.
Jacques Arago in 1939, by which time he was completely blind. Portrait by Nicholas Eustache Maurin, now the property of the National Library of Australia.
Among the contributors was Jacques Arago, the artist on the Uranie expedition, and he was in distinguished company. The other contributors included Alexandre Dumas, Chateaubriand, Henry Monnier, Lamartine, and Victor Hugo. Arago contributed three pieces, including the one below.
Is the story true? Is it just a fable? It seems an odd piece to have been entirely made up, but Jacques Arago was, by his own admission, quite an odd fellow.
For what it is worth, here it is, in translation.
Each country has its own character. That is why the world is so interesting to see.
Simple lovers of their homes, who die within the limits of the villages where they were born by Heaven’s choice, who live merely to survive, is that really to be alive?
As for me, I am always ready to attribute a certain kind of intelligence to the peddler I see on the highways, alone, stick in hand and pack on back, changing country as a citizen of Paris changes neighbourhood, and seeking, in his adventurous journeys, not a fortune that he knows he will not attain, but a way of life for which he feels a need and would seek in vain in his quiet homeland.
He left with thirty francs in his pocket, he returns, three years later, with ten crowns in his pocket. Do not pity him; he saw, he studied, he compared, he enriched his memory, he endowed his old age with memories whose unaffected stories will enliven your long winter evenings. If he has spent days in misery and fatigue, listen to him tell of the smallest details, with a precise and detailed recall that proves to you how much joy he feels at having passed them without shame. Consider the sailor who escapes the raging waves; as soon as he reaches the shore, his first action is to turn to face the enemy that has just destroyed his ship. He would be angry to find it then calm and peaceful; on the contrary he smiles at its fury, its tumult, its threats, and the joy he feels is pride, because it tells him of his own strength or skill.
Ohi If I had only found a traveling companion who would have wanted to share with me the perils of distant voyages ………! I do not know how to be happy alone, my happiness is only complete when I share it. If I take everything for myself, there is something missing. Forgive me my oddity; it is not I who made me this way. If if I had been in charge….. Eh! good God if I had been in charge, I would be the same. You who see pride in my words, reflect, and you will find only bitterness.
Let us return to my first contention, on the particular nature of each country. The learned geologists who have studied the riches of the earth at great depths have not, in my opinion, fulfilled their mission, because they have not sought to explain the influence of the soil on the character or habits of the people who tread it. The differences that are notable from country to country are sometimes still more remarkable from town to neighbouring town, as the fruits of the earth are here excellent and there, a few steps away. are meagre indeed. To deny the influence of customs and traditions would be madness, to deny that of the soil would be stupidity.
Also, each climate has its own peoples, its own characters, its own vices and virtues; and it is unusual that I do not guess the country that a culprit is from as soon as I am told the details of a crime.
There are areas where the inhabitants are more distinct, even more remarkable, from causes that we have no mission to investigate today. An Englishman recognizes a Scotsman by accent, by gait, by character of face. I, who have seen Spain and Portugal, do not need to hear, in my walks, the accent of a citizen of these kingdoms. I recognise his homeland almost with certainty, and very often his province.
The English, for example, are the easiest to guess. — See this milord. — Look at this lady. — What a strange ‘rosbif’! — In the markets of Paris, you hear these singular expressions only as soon as an Englishman or an Englishwoman passes by. They do not need to speak, they are recognized.
Well, this nation, so well distinguished by its outward appearance, is perhaps still more so by its morals and its habits of mind. If I can explain it thus, we have rendered into French most of their expressions, but there are in our country some exceptions. ‘He is splenetic. Translate these words exactly into our language, I defy you.
I have known Englishmen, in all of the Indies, who were proud to see me guess their homeland when almost at the antipodes of their River Thames. They were right. But one of the most extraordinary examples that I have met on my way is Sir George Beck, about whom I am going to tell you. But first, before the drama, some facts.
With an income of two thousand pounds sterling, he found the means, with the aid of a single passion which mastered him, to reach the end of each year without a shilling of savings. Everything was devoured.
He never bet on horse races; he would have considered himself dishonoured if he had lost a single guinea by gambling. Cold and taciturn, he lived without love for women; his home was the one he had from his father, and he spent nothing to enhance it. He despised those brilliant trinkets which we call jewels and was never seen to have a sudden hunger for good food.
On what, then, did he spend his fortune?
On watching men being hanged.
What an ogre! What a monster! Do not speak to us of such a man! And yet I want to speak to you about him, for I have never known one more engaging, more affable. I was charmed in less than a quarter of an hour and yet I had first cried out like everyone’ What a monster! What an ogre!’
Sir George Beck needed powerful emotions. Tranquillity and calm were violent storms for him; he became ill, he dragged himself to his bed, and there the prayers of friendship would have been powerless against his melancholy, had it not been dispersed with the help of a catastrophe, an electric shock, an explosion to shake the brain. Sir George Beck found Dante’s hell a sad way to pass the time; he gave the epithet ‘tame’ to Shakespeare, and he described the Night Thoughts of Edward Young as jokes.
Poor Sir George Beck ! His life is like that of the Wandering Jew. Pity my friend, for he is truly my friend. Hoping to find more relief from his fits in France, he came here last year. I met him on the terrace of the Observatory. We left together, and saw each other again sometimes. He spoke to me of his illness. I will tell you. We were at the table! Over the steak, he wept at the fate of the oxen, fattened only to be cruelly butchered. At the sight of a pigeon à la crapaudine he fulminated against the cruelty of men who tear these poor small birds away from their loves, to feed their gluttonous appetites. In front of each dish, a new elegy, sometimes sombre, sometimes philosophical and always figurative; there were tears for his regrets, yet I have never seen eating done with more pleasure.
“You see,” he said to me, “I love these dishes, I must eat them, I must nourish myself with them, yetthe sight of them gives me pain. You, sir, will find no cognizance in them; I see blood, agony, martyrdom. Quick, give me some asparagus. I hate asparagus.” I believed in Sir George Beck’s illness. Sir George Beck is not mad, he is simply unhappy, his constitution is killing him.
“Do you know,” he said to me on another day, “that the doctors have already despaired of me? The Faculty gave up on me when, one evening, more agitated than usual, I wanted to attend experiments made on the corpse of a man who had just been taken down from the gallows. Listen, listen; it is as miraculous as a resurrection. One more advance on Volta and I shall see the dead rise from their tombs.” I tried in vain to break off the conversation and to restore a little calm to his soul; my efforts were useless. Sir Georges’ eyes were blazing, his complexion scarlet, his fingers contracted. “You will listen to me,” he cried; “you will listen to me, if only out of pity. If I do not tell you now, I will surely suffocate. You know a little physics, I do not know a word of it, and yet I am sure of being accurate, so deeply are the smallest circumstances of these astonishing scenes engraved in my memory. So much did the marvellous events that then took place fill me with astonishment and horror!
“It was in an operating theatre. There were four doctors, two surgeons, ten or twelve inquisitive onlookers and myself. I would have given five hundred guineas to anyone strong enough to drag me out of there, and then a thousand to anyone who would have taken me back. Oh, there are within us struggles ghat would destroy the logic of many philosophers. Reason cannot explain them, and all the tongues of the universe are not rich enough to make them understood.”
“In a first experiment, a large incision was made in the neck of the unhappy man. The posterior half of the atlas vertebra was removed with fragments of bone, so as to expose the spinal cord. Liquid blood flowed from the wound in great abundance, flooding the floor. At the same time a large incision was made in the left hip, so as to expose the sciatic nerve, and a small incision was made in the heel. No blood flowed from either.
“Volta was about to revive the corpse.”
“One pointed rod, connected to one end of a battery, was then placed in contact with the spinal cord, while another was applied to the sciatic nerve. …. Then every muscle in the body twitched with convulsive movements, resembling a violent shivering due to cold. The left side was the most powerfully convulsed at each renewal of the electrical contact. Then, by moving the second rod from the hip to the heel, the knee having been previously bent, the leg was stretched with such violence that it knocked over one of the assistants who was trying in vain to prevent this happening.
“I, sir, was stupefied. Horror and admiration dominated me to such an extent that, had it not been for the announcement of a new experiment, that which should have made me ill and agitated me so voltaically would have quite caused me to lose my senses. Then, I witnessed the work of respiration on a corpse; the chest rose and fell, the belly swelled and collapsed, as the diaphragm relaxed and withdrew. This effect continued to take place without interruption during the whole time that the operator produced electric discharges, and science itself seemed incredulous at the phenomenon which struck its eyes.”
“In the judgment of several witnesses of the scene, this experiment of respiration was perhaps the most striking of all those that had ever been made with a physical apparatus and, but for the draining of the blood, the doctors assured us that they would have felt the pulsations of the heart and the wrist.”
“But, sir,” continued Sir George, “I was not at the end of my emotions. The skillful operator soon exposed the orbital nerve in the forehead. One of the rods serving as a conductor was applied to this nerve, and the other to the heel, and each time that electric shocks were given, the corpse made the most extraordinary grimaces. In two seconds, more than fifty shocks were given, each stronger than the last. Every muscle went into terrible action. Rage, despair, a horrible smile, anguish, all the emotions of man manifested themselves in hideous expressions. At this moment, several of the spectators found themselves, through terror or indisposition, forced to leave the apartment, and I fell on the floor, pale, almost without breathing and covered with an icy sweat. Now, do you think that the memory of such scenes ever leaves my memory, since, in the midst of the agitations that I provoke and that I need, I have not forgotten a single one of the comments made by the learned professors who experimented on the corpse of the hanged man.”
Sir Georges ended his story there. The next day, I presented myself at his door. I was refused entry; the too vivid memories of the operations of which he had been a witness, and which his story had revived again, made him keep his room for more than a month.
You might believe perhaps that this extraordinary man is the famous Cardan, who, in Rome, his homeland, had himself operated on while conscious, to judge the sufferings that surgery caused. No, I say again, my man is George Beck, born in London. In the first, one would have found a grain of reason, in the other, only pain and destiny. George will not die in his bed.
I told you he had two thousand guineas income. He received all the newspapers in Great Britain, because he especially wanted to know where and when an execution took place. Perhaps he would not have been so eager to see a man’s head cut off, but a dangling corpse was a spectacle of which he could not have enough. And yet, when the culprit passed by, George would willingly have given half his fortune to snatch him from the executioner.
The affairs of the courts were those with which he occupied himself with the most avidity. What did it matter to him that monarchs put strong armies on the march to support their pretensions or their rights? A battle had no attraction for him; men are seldom hanged on the field of battle, and generals do not give their soldiers nooses.
When a newspaper announced an execution, Sir George made no travel arrangements until he had convinced himself that there was no other sooner. His horses were worn out so that he could attend two punishments at once, and he covered the distances, if necessary, with the speed of the telegraph. If two executions took place at the same time, Sir George, in despair, chose for himself the one where he expected the catastrophe to be more dramatic; one of his servants was sent to the other, tasked with preserving, in writing, the smallest details of the scenes he was about to witness, and, at a time of misfortune, he had four servants running at once. On their return, the one who had seen the best and who told the story most picturesquely, received the largest reward.
I have told you a few details: here is a complete story. You have just seen a preface: here is the book.
A small town in the north of England was about to be the scene of a memorable execution, since they were to hang there a famous thief who, while seated in court, wiped his face with the handkerchief of the guards who were at his side, and which he had stolen from them during the trial. Sir George arrived at the place of execution two hours before the guilty man. If only he had arrived two hours later, but that was impossible.
George does not cry out, but he pushes, he elbows, he thrusts violently into the throng, and he finally arrives near the window from which the thief was to be tossed into eternity. But he was not happy there; he was too far from the gallows; he sought a better place. A man shouted to him:
“Here, gentlemen, is a strong cart; who wants to come up? Three shillings each. Hurry, the show is about to begin.”
“How many people do you think your cart can carry?”
“Why, at least thirty”
“Here is the price of fifty; but I alone will have the enjoyment of your property.”
“My lord, that is fair enough”
And there is Sir George alone, dominating the crowd, and meditating on the scaffold of destruction, with which he was level, as Pliny studied the progress of the lava of Vesuvius which was soon to engulf him.
Meanwhile the crowd were staring at him; they were rushing about. hoping to learn the name and profession of this singular man, who had just paid so dearly for the pleasure of watching a hanging at his leisure. At ten paces from him, they were already asserting that he had bought his place for ten guineas; at twenty-five paces, the sum was put at thirty pounds sterling; and, at the other end of the square, the glasses were trained on the millionaire who had so generously given a poor devil two hundred good and beautiful guineas in gold. The spectacle was therefore, for the moment, on the cart occupied by Sir George Beck. They were lost in speculation.
Suddenly a stocky, ugly, common man ran up, mounted the cart, saluted Sir George who returned his politeness, and asked him if he was in the profession.
“I do not understand you.”
“Ah! it is that, just now, I also cast my eyes on you, from the window where I was, and I thought I saw that you approved certain preparations and that you criticised others.”
“I was right to do so, sir: the scaffold is unbalanced, a sudden movement might overturn it. This is a serious fault that must be put right, in the interest of the executioner; and, if you know him, I strongly urge you to go and tell him.”
“I thank you, my lord, your advice will be taken.”
Georges is then again alone.
During this short dialogue, the crowd hardly dares breathe. They wish not to miss a syllable, for they recognize the speaker as the executioner’s servant, and curiosity is now pushed to the highest degree.
But a distant hubbub announces the culprit is about to appear. Seeing him on the fatal board, Sir George does not miss the slightest movement. See how red he is, how agitated; there is reason to fear a sudden attack of apoplexy. Sometimes he applauds with his hands, sometimes he approves with his voice. The rope is passed around the neck, the culprit is pitched down; Sir George makes an extraordinary leap, utters a noisy exclamation and descends from his throne. The crowd follows him; George does not see the crowd. From shouts they pass to jeers, from jeers to threats, from threats to actions. Mud already soils Sir George’s clothes and, without the help of the constable and his guards, perhaps he would not reach his hotel, where a very soft and very warm bed awaits him. The unfortunate man needs it. The happy ferment has passed; now is only pain.
The next day, quite early, a man knocks at his door.
“Come in”
“Sir, I have the honour to greet you.”
“Sir, I greet you.”
“Is it to Sir George Beck that I have the privilege of addressing myself?”
“Indeed. What is your purpose? But quickly, I pray you, for I expect a visitor of much greater importance than you.”
“I will be brief, sir. This morning, on waking, my footman gave me a letter worded thus:
Sir, be kind enough to take the trouble to call on me, without the least delay, for an important communication that I have to make to you.
Signed, SIR GEORGE BECK.
See, is this letter from you?”
“It is from me, and I beg your pardon for not having recognized you at once. Yes, sir, I asked you to call on my hotel on some important business; but allow me to congratulate you on your wonderful address; it is impossible to be at once more nimble and more humane than you. Your execution yesterday did you the greatest credit.”
“Sir, you flatter me.”
“No, really. I have never seen anyone operate with such promptness. You are young, strong, you will go far, it is I who predict it for you. You are too good.”
“Is Sir like me, in the pay of the courts?”
“I am simply an amateur, sir; but my admiration is not to be disdained.”
“How can I be of service to you?”
“Here it is. I asked you to come by, so that you would be kind enough to hang me.”
“This is doubtless a joke.”
“God forbid that I should joke about such serious matters. What I tell you is of the greatest gravity. I want to be hanged, hanged by you, hanged without delay; and misfortune will befall you if you refuse me.”
“But I have no authority to do so.”
“I give them all to you”
“I refuse them.”
“You have no right to do so. What is this? In a free country, an honest citizen wants to stop living by hanging, and it is opposed! That will not be, sir, it cannot be.”
“But, sir, in a free country, one must be free not to hang, and I am free to refuse you my ministry.”
“Error, gross error. You are an executioner, your job is to hang, and you will hang me. What would you say if a butcher refused to sell you a roast beef?”
“Allow me to point out to you that the comparison is flawed because, after all, I am only required to hang people condemned to be hanged.”
“So I was condemned.”
“By whom?”
“By myself”
“All this is well and good, but I will not hang you; and to prove it to you, I am going away. Good-bye, sir.”
“You will not leave until I am satisfied, and to prove to you that I also have a strong and powerful will, I begin by locking this door with a double turn, and throwing the key through the window. That is done. Now listen. Here, on this desk, is a roll of one hundred guineas; they are yours if you hang me. Here in my right hand is an excellent pistol well loaded; if you refuse me, I will shoot, and you will hang no more condemned men, I swear to you.”
“Your obstinacy, sir, is inconceivable; no one is a witness to our dispute, and I can be prosecuted as a criminal; it is for myself that I implore you, and not for you. Now, what you ask of me in such a strange way, is it really reasonable?”
“Well, I agree to remove the only difficulty that is stopping you. I understand that you could be prosecuted, and to save you this little inconvenience, I will write down on paper the conditions that I have imposed on you, and then sign.”
“You are very urgent, sir,”
“What the devil! must it cost so much for an honest man to render service?”
“You are tyrannizing me greatly.”
“It is to oblige me, it is in my interest.”
“My faith! in the keeping of God Here I am ready.”
“At last!”
“First, sir, your declaration in my pocket.”
“There it is.”
“Now, take off your coat.”
“That is right, it could get caught and harm the neatness of the operation.”
“Your cravat also.”
“Admirably thought. If I kept it on, you might fail me”
“Is the rope well prepared?”
“I personally gave myself this pleasure. See how the knot slides.”
“Admirable Where is the nail or the hook?”
“I drove it into the wall yesterday, with great blows of the mallet; and to make sure that it would not give way, I hung this heavy desk from it, and it held.”
“That is marvellous; now then, a small rope to tie the hands.”
“Ah, I had forgotten; but you are far-sighted. I have already told you, sir, you will make great progress in your profession, if you continue your serious studies, and humanity will owe you many thanks. Here is the small rope.”
“Your hands … there ……. behind the back. Good. Let me squeeze hard, the pain in y
“Prodigious young man!”
“Do you feel the pressure?”
“Gently, gently,”
“That’s what’s needed. Could you free yourself?”
“I think not.”
“Try.”
“Impossible.”
“The time is then right now, for both of us.”
Thereupon the executioner falls on Sir George with great blows of fists and feet; unable to defend himself, the latter cries out ‘treason!’, ‘ambush!’, ‘infamy!’; he bites the shoulder of his antagonist and, being unable to strike except with his head, buts him with it in desperation. But books, boxes, and even guineas rain down on my friend’s face; he is sweating, he is about to succumb, when, attracted by the cries of the assailant and the vanquished, the neighbours arrive in a crowd, break down the door, seize the executioner, who justifies himself in four words, and force Sir George to lie down. A doctor is called, arrives in all haste, gives two copious bloodlettings to our poor George, and saves his life.
The unfortunate man had been attacked by a brain fever a few moments after the execution of the famous thief and, in his delirium, he had written to the executioner the letter that had given rise to the scene I have just described.
The next day Sir George was cured, and remembered only confusedly the past events. They were recounted to him; still weak, he addressed these five lines to his vigorous adversary.
Sir, I offered you a hundred guineas to hang me; accept, as a token of my esteem, the two hundred pounds sterling that I send you, for having broken my bones and not having hanged me.
GEORGE BECK.
Today Sir George seems to me calmer than in the past; he still attends public executions, but he is no longer ill if he cannot attend them. Besides, an immense step in his recovery has already been taken, since he is now in Paris, free to return to England, and yet strolling quite peacefully in the Tuileries, even when he learns of the condemnation of some great criminal in his country.
Sir George is fifty to fifty-five years old, he is thin, tall, pale; he almost always wears a short frock coat of purple velvet, a grey hat, yellow trousers and gaiters.
Go, from two o’clock to four o’clock, to the terrace of the Feulliants, if you want to know Sir George Beck, the hero of my story. I sometimes walk with him, and yesterday again we spent part of the evening together, and there was no question of hanged men.
I have high hopes.
JACQUES ARAGO.