"Is he,by chance,a relation of the man who executed Sand?"I asked.
"He is his son,and was standing by when the head fell.".
"What is his calling,then?"
"The same as that of his father,whom he succeeded.""But you call him 'doctor'?"
"Certainly;with us,executioners have that title.""But,then,doctors of what?"
"Of surgery."
"Really?"said I."With us it is just the contrary;surgeons are called executioners.""You will find him,moreover,"added Mr.G--,"a very distinguished young man,who,although he was very young at that time,has retained a vivid recollection of that event.As for his poor father,I think he would as willingly have cut off his own right hand as have executed Sand;but if he had refused,someone else would have been found.So he had to do what he was ordered to do,and he did his best."I thanked Mr.G--,fully resolving to make use of his letter,and we left for Heidelberg,where we arrived at eleven in the evening.
My first visit next day was to Dr.Widernann.It was not without some emotion,which,moreover,I saw reflected upon,the faces of my travelling companions,that I rang at the door of the last judge,as the Germans call him.An old woman opened the door to us,and ushered us into a pretty little study,on the left of a passage and at the foot of a staircase,where we waited while Mr.Widemann finished dressing.This little room was full of curiosities,madrepores,shells,stuffed birds,and dried plants;a double-barrelled gun,a powder-flask,and a game-bag showed that Mr.
Widemann was a hunter.
After a moment we heard his footstep,and the door opened.Mr.
Widemann was a very handsome young man,of thirty or thirty-two,with black whiskers entirely surrounding his manly and expressive face;his morning dress showed a certain rural elegance.He seemed at first not only embarrassed but pained by our visit.The aimless curiosity of which he seemed to be the object was indeed odd.I hastened to give him Mr.G -'s letter and to tell him what reason brought me.Then he gradually recovered himself,and at last showed himself no less hospitable and obliging towards us than he to whom we owed the introduction had been,the day before.
Mr.Widemann then gathered together all his remembrances;he,too,had retained a vivid recollection of Sand,and he told us among other things that his father,at the risk of bringing himself into ill odour,had asked leave to have a new scaffold made at his own expense,so that no other criminal might be executed upon the altar of the martyr's death.Permission had been given,and Mr.Widemann had used the wood of the scaffold for the doors and windows of a little country house standing in a vineyard.Then for three or four years this cottage became a shrine for pilgrims;but after a time,little by little,the crowd grew less,and at the present day,when some of those who wiped the blood from the scaffold with their handkerchiefs have became public functionaries,receiving salaries from Government,only foreigners ask,now and again,to see these strange relics.
Mr.Widemann gave me a guide;for,after hearing everything,I wanted to see everything.The house stands half a league away from Heidelberg,on the left of the road to Carlsruhe,and half-way up the mountain-side.It is perhaps the only monument of the kind that exists in the world.
Our readers will judge better from this anecdote than from anything more we could say,what sort of man he was who left such a memory in the hearts of his gaoler and his executioner.
