"I've a statement to make! " I shout. "I've a confession! Please! I want to confess everything! "

"Then let me finish my business here," Sanson calls down, the first hint of aggrievement in his voice. "Then I can tend to you, Monsieur."

The last ropes are attached. The plank is swung outward, taking Charles directly into the path of the blade. All that Sanson need do now is pull the cord.

"A pardon is coming! " I cry. "Very soon! From the King himself! "

"Never heard that one before," says Sanson.

"There's a pardon, I tell you! "

But I just give the crowd new fodder. Before twenty seconds have passed, the word is echoing back to me from every corner of the Place de Greve.

"Pardon! Pardon! Pardon!"

Which is, in fact, the last thing they want. Indeed, nothing would disappoint them more than a last-minute reprieve.

And nothing seems less likely now. Charles is perfectly recumbent, perfectly still. Sanson is walking, with great purpose, toward the cord. All is lost.

And then, over the building hum of the crowd, comes a shrill corvine cry, so different in character and intent that it creates a wall of stillness round it.

"Stop!"

I gaze out into the human ocean. From nowhere, a small eddy has appeared. Two royal guardsmen, beating a path through the crowd with the f lats of their swords, and following in their wake-dressed like an avenger-the Duchesse d'Angouleme.

"You must desist! " she shrieks. "These men are innocent! "

At this moment, I'd wager no one in the Place de Greve is more terrified than she. Here, on every side, is the mob of her deepest and most private terrors. Showing her not a hint of reverence.

"Get out with her! "

"We don't go and spoil her fun, do we?"

"Send her back to the palace! "

Undaunted, she makes straight for the scaffold, calling as she goes. "They are innocent, I tell you! "

A discontented murmur rises from the populace, and at the foot of the scaffold, Sanson stands in frowning colloquy with one of his assistants.

"Think we should get a move on. . . ."

"Behind schedule as it is. . . ."

"Rain's going to rust the apparatus. . . ."

But this exchange gives way before a much larger sound.

"You heard my daughter-in-law, Monsieur Sanson!"

On the parapets of the Palais de Justice stands a figure of unassailable dignity. Garlanded in ribbons and medals. Clothed in all the perquisites of dynasty.

The mere sight of him produces an altogether different sound in the crowd. For though many of them have never glimpsed the Duchesse d'Angouleme, this man they know.

And now, much to the surprise of everyone about me, I begin to laugh. For if I'd had to pick a personal savior, the Comte d'Artois would not have been my choice.

"These men are to go free!" he roars, unfurling a long document. "By order of the King!"

A moment of abeyance follows, during which Sanson can be seen actively weighing the claims of his two masters: mob and monarchy. It takes him a good half minute to come down on the side of the latter.

"Untie them, boys," he says, in a resigned tone.

And when the last rope is cut from my wrists, he tenders me his most gracious bow.

"No hard feelings, I hope, Monsieur."

By the time the Comte reaches our cart, the rain has already begun to dissolve his face into the familiar features of Eugene Francois Vidocq. The Duchess, sodden and panting, is grabbing me by the torn edge of my shirt and shouting: