The scene of fate before them gave, perhaps, a more yellow tinge to their swarthy cheeks; but it neither agitated their features, nor quenched the stubborn haughtiness of their eye.

They seemed like foxes, which, after all their wiles and artful attempts at escape are exhausted, die with a silent and sullen fortitude which wolves and bears, the fiercer objects of the chase, do not exhibit.

They were undaunted by the conduct of the fatal executioners, who went about their work with more deliberation than their master had recommended, and which probably arose from their having acquired by habit a sort of pleasure in the discharge of their horrid office.

We pause an instant to describe them, because, under a tyranny, whether despotic or popular, the character of the hangman becomes a subject of grave importance.
These functionaries were essentially different in their appearance and manners.

Louis used to call them Democritus and Heraclitus, and their master, the Provost, termed them Jean qui pleure and Jean qui rit.
[Democritus and Heraclitus: two Greek philosophers of the fifth century; the former because of his propensity to laugh at the follies of men was called the "laughing philosopher;" the latter, according to a current notion, probably unfounded, habitually wept over the follies of mankind] [Jean qui pleure, and Jean qui rit: John who weeps and John who laughs.
One of these two persons,..