"IV. No one shall be allowed to reproach any citizen with the punishment of one of his relations. He that shall dare to do so shall be reprimanded by the Judge, and this reprimand shall be posted up at the door of the delinquent; and moreover shall be posted against the pillory for three months.
"V. The property of a convict shall never nor in any case be confiscated.
"VI. The bodies of executed criminals shall be delivered to their families if they demand it. In all cases the body shall be buried in the usual manner, and the registry shall contain no mention of the nature of the death."
These propositions—embodying the philosophe theories, and at best unseasonable—were adjourned, somewhat contemptuously as it seems, without a debate; but on the 1st of December the Doctor brought them forward again—preceding his motion by reading a long and detailed report in their favour, to which—unluckily for the history of the guillotine—the Assembly did not pay the usual compliment of printing it, and no copy was found amongst Guillotin's papers. The account of the debate in the journals is peculiarly meagre, but we gather from them and other quarters some curious circumstances.
The first proposition was voted with little or no opposition. On the second a discussion arose, and the Abbé Maury, with prophetic sagacity, objected to the adoption of decapitation as a general punishment, "because it might tend to deprave the people by familiarizing them with the sight of blood;" but
