If there happens to be well-known person, it is agreed to take more care in prolonging the torment.

At La Force, the Federates who come for M.de Rulhieres swear "with frightful imprecations that they will cut the head of anyone daring to end his sufferings with a thrust of his pike"; the first thing is to strip him naked, and then, for half an hour, with the flat of their sabers, they cut and slash him until he drips with blood and is "skinned to his entrails."-- All the monstrous instincts who grovels chained up in the dregs of the human heart, not only cruelty with its bared fangs,[31108] but also the slimier desires, unite in fury against women whose noble or infamous repute makes them conspicuous; against Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; against Madame Desrues, widow of the famous poisoner; against the flower-girl of the Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover, a French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy.

Ferocity here is associated with lewdness to add debasement to torture, while life is violated through outrages on modesty.

In Madame de Lamballe, killed too quickly, the libidinous butchers could outrage only a corpse, but for the widow,[31109] and especially the flower-girl, they revive, like so many Neros, the fire-circle of the Iroquois.[31110]--From the Iroquois to the cannibal, the gulf is small, and some of them jump across it.

At the Abbaye, an old soldier named Damiens, buries his saber in the side of the adjutant-general la Leu, thrusts his hand into the opening, tears out the heart "and puts it to his mouth as if to eat it"; "the blood," says an eye-witness, "trickled from his mouth and formed a sort of mustache for him."[31111] At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is carved up.
What Charlot, the wig-maker, who carried her head did, I to it, should not be described.