The Red Track by Gustave Aimard

The Spanish custom -- a custom which has been kept up in all the old colonies of that power -- of placing persons condemned to death in a chapel, requires explanation, in order that it may be thoroughly understood and appreciated, as it deserves to be.

Frenchmen, over whom the great revolution of '93 passed like a hurricane, and carried off most of their belief in its sanguinary cloak, may smile with pity and regard as a fanatic remainder from another age, this custom of placing the condemned in chapel. Among us, it is true, matters are managed much more simply: a man, when condemned by the law, eats, drinks, and remains alone in his cell. If he desire it, he is visited by the chaplain, whom he is at liberty to converse with, if he likes; if not, he remains perfectly quiet, and nobody pays any attention to him, during a period more or less long, and determined by the rejection of his appeal. Then, one fine morning, when he is least thinking of it, the governor of the prison announces to him, when he wakes, as the most simple thing in the world, that he is to be executed that same day, and only an hour is granted him to recommend his soul to the divine clemency.