the execution and its message of herself as an example of which to take warning. Finally, she prayed. The general verdict was evident: a saint had been hanged. The impact on the crowd was also immense.370 The problem posed to authorities, both civil and ecclesiastical, was that when a delinquent in this way undisputed played the leading part in the drama others might have been”inspired in ways unintended by the ministers”.371 A condemned could sabotage the messages state or church wanted to deliver or as Jodi Schorb puts it be: ”the prisoner who refused to accept the justice of the sentence or to follow the expected path of heartfelt contrition and persuasive performance.” Writing about New England, she refers to both open rebellion and a condemned that spent her execution sermon sleeping.372 That the preachers, and especially Cotton Mather who Schorb singles out, focused on such behaviour in their speeches instead of ignoring it shows that although the condemned were central, the others present and the message communicated to them were of equal importance. In France the role of the execution could easily be interpreted theologically. Developed during the Ancien Regime and pursued into the nineteenth century it was an important part of a sacrificial and sacramental order through which the executed could be reconciled and saved. The condemned, being part of this order, travelled the route from penitent to martyr and thus became a holy victim of the sacrifice.373 When Jean Corbelet was broken on the wheel in Caen in 1762, in the sentence his time of suffering was set to one hour. During that hour he prayed and sang with the priest and the crowd. Before his execution he sung Salve Regina and when he was on the wheel two hymns, VeniCreator andAve maris stella, and the liturgical Misere were sung, with Corbelet and the crowd singing alternate strophes.374 Executed could, and it this case probably easily, be understood as a model for a righteous death. An air of liturgy and sacrifice surrounded the scene.375 370 Cohen, DA1993 p 62 sq. 371 Cohen, DA1993 p64. 372 Schorb 2011 p 294, 299 sq. 373 Bée 1975 p 93 sqq, Bée 1983 p 848 sqq. 374 Mauger 1904 p 174 sq, Bée 1993 p 262. 375 Bée 1993 p 271. 110
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