Explore "The Last Days of a Condemned" by Victor Hugo on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I had a glimpse of _it_ once. I was passing by the Grêve in a carriage, about eleven o'clock, one morning, when a crowd impeded our progress. I looked out of the window; a dense throng of men, women, and children filled the place and the neighbouring streets. Above the crowd I saw a kind of frame of red wood, which three men were building. I turned away my head with disgust. Close to the carriage there was a woman who said to a child, "Now, look! the axe slides badly; they are going to grease the slide with a candle-end."
They are probably doing the same now. Eleven o'clock has just struck. No doubt they are greasing the slide.