One day, during the Terror, three men--two priests and an engineer--were condemned to death and taken to the Place de la Révolution to be guillotined. Upon arriving, one of the priests turned to the executioners and said, "Citoyens, I am a man of God. I ask one favor of you. Please guillotine me face up, rather than face down, so that at my last moment I can gaze up into God's realm in the heavens."The executioners thought this was not an outrageous request, and being decent people, they agreed. The priest was strapped to the bascule and tipped under the blade. The chief executioner released the catch and . . . nothing happened.
"The Lord has preserved my life for another moment of existence!" cried the priest.
The executioner tried again, with no result, and once again. After a few minutes of this, the crowd, which despite everything was essentially rather uneasy about dechristianization, started to shout, "This is God's judgement--he doesn't want the priest killed! Free the priest!"
One of the executioners, who was a religious man and who was just as nervous as the crowd, quickly unstrapped the priest and whispered to him, "All right, just go and keep your mouth shut!" The priest murmured "God bless you, my son," and made himself scarce.
The second priest was led to the guillotine. He, too, asked that he be executed with his face to the heavens. He was strapped down, the catch was sprung, and once again the guillotine didn't work.
"Another miracle!" sighed the second priest. "This is surely God's work."
At this point the crowd was becoming frightened, and promptly shouts of "Free the priest!" rose. The executioner once again unstrapped the victim, told him to escape, and beckoned the last condemned man up, thinking, Well, at least this one isn't a priest.
The third man, the engineer, was led to the guillotine. "Eh bien, citoyen," said the executioner, who was becoming somewhat annoyed with the botched day's work, "do you want to be guillotined face up, too?"
"Why not?" said the engineer, shrugging.
The executioners strapped him onto the bascule face up, released the catch--and the guillotine, once again, did NOT work.
"Aha," exclaimed the engineer, "I see what your problem is!"
