I
will only mention one here.
During his imprisonment in the Luxembourg Prison in Paris, Thomas
Paine was one of the many who were sentenced to be guillotined at
that period when the moral temperature of France was many degrees
above the normal mark, and men doled out death more freely than
_sous_. It was the custom among the jailers to make a chalk mark upon
the door of each cell that held a man condemned. Paine was one of a
"consignment" of one hundred and sixty-eight prisoners sentenced to be
beheaded at dawn, and the jailer made the fateful chalk mark upon his
door along with the others, that the guards would know he was destined
for the tumbrel that rolled away from the prison hour by hour all
through the night. _But his door chanced to be open_, so that the
mark, hastily made, turned out to be on the wrong side! When the door
was closed it was inside, and no one knew of it; so the guard passed
on, and Paine lived.
It is interesting but difficult to write about Thomas Paine.
The trouble about him is that his personality is too overwhelming to
be cut and measured in proper lengths by any writer.
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