execution, where a large body of troops stood formed in a hollow square; the sentence was read to them in French and English; they were then put in position, and fired upon. It was said that Noyan de Bienville, young, handsome, and but recently married to a daughter of Lafrénière, awoke enough compassion in O'Reilly to be offered his life, on condition that he would abandon his companions; he refused. Lafrénière, firm and heroic to the end, exhorted his son-in-law to send the scarf he wore to his young wife, that she might preserve it and give it to his son when he became a man. All protested against being tied to the stakes. Lafrénière gave the command to fire.
From daylight, guards had been doubled at every gate and station in the city. The troops were kept in the public places and along the levee under arms and prepared for action. Those of the citizens who could, fled in horror and anguish to the country. The rest remained inside closed doors and windows. All signs and sounds of life were suppressed. The explosion of musketry that announced the end reverberated as through a death chamber. It was the blackest day the city had ever known. It is still a day that lies under a pall in memory. No historian with French blood can review it unmoved. Martin breaks through his studied calm and impartiality, after his account of it, with: "Posterity, the judge of men in power, will doom this act to public execration. No necessity demanded it, no policy justified it," and De Vergennes, the cool-headed sage of Louis XVI., cannot in writing of it forbear the cry to his sovereign: "Ah, Sire! perhaps the names of these five unfortunate Frenchmen who were executed never came to the ears of your majesty; deign to throw a few
