The horse of one of the Gardes de Paris was alone heard snorting in the centre of the space which had been kept clear.
Then came a loathsome scramble, a scene of nameless brutality and ignominy.

The headsman's helps rushed upon Salvat as he came up slowly with brow erect.

Two of them seized him by the head, but finding little hair there, could only lower it by tugging at his neck.

Next two others grasped him by the legs and flung him violently upon a plank which tilted over and rolled forward.

Then, by dint of pushing and tugging, the head was got into the "lunette," the upper part of which fell in such wise that the neck was fixed as in a ship's port-hole--and all this was accomplished amidst such confusion and with such savagery that one might have thought that head some cumbrous thing which it was necessary to get rid of with the greatest speed.