These monsters ruled France for a time with the most despotic sway. The most sanguinary laws were enacted--and the most vigilant system of police maintained. Spies and informers were employed--and every murmur, and every expression unfavourable to the ruling powers was followed with the sentence of death and its immediate execution.
"Men," says Scott, "read Livy for the sake of discovering what degree of private crime might be committed under the mask of public virtue. The deed of the younger Brutus, served any man as an apology to betray to ruin and to death, a friend or a patron, whose patriotism might not be of the pitch which suited the time. Under the example of the elder Brutus, the nearest ties of blood were repeatedly made to give way before the ferocity of party zeal--a zeal too often assumed for the most infamous and selfish purposes. As some fanatics of yore studied the old testament for the purpose of finding examples of bad actions to vindicate those which themselves were tempted to commit, so the republicans of France, we mean the desperate and outrageous bigots of the revolution, read history to justify, by classical instances, their public and private crimes. Informers, those scourges of a state, were encouraged to a degree scarce known in ancient Rome in the time of the emperors, though Tacitus has hurled his thunders against them, as the poison and pest of his time. The duty of lodging such informations was unblushingly urged as indispensable. The safety of the republic being the supreme charge of every citizen, he was on no account to hesitate in _denouncing_, as it was termed, any one whomsoever, or howsoever connected with him,--the friend of his counsels, or the wife of his bosom,--providing he had reason to suspect the devoted individual of the crime of _incivism_,--a crime the more mysteriously dreadful, as no one knew exactly its nature."
In this place we shall give an account of some of the scenes to which France was subject during this awful period. In order to render the triumph complete, the leaders of the Jacobins determined upon a general massacre of all the friends of the unfortunate Louis and the constitution in the kingdom. For this purpose, suspected persons of all ranks were collected in the prisons and jails, and on the 2d of September, 1792, the work of death commenced.
_Massacre of Prisoners._
The number of individuals accumulated in the various prisons of Paris had increased by the arrests and domiciliary visits subsequent to the 10th of August, to about eight thousand persons. It was the object of this infernal scheme to destroy the greater part of these under one general system of murder, not to be executed by the sudden and furious impulse of an armed multitude, but with a certain degree of cold blood and deliberate investigation. A force of armed banditti, Marsellois partly, and partly chosen ruffians of the Fauxbourgs, proceeded to the several prisons, into which they either forced their passage, or were admitted by the jailers, most of whom had been apprised of what was to take place, though some even of these steeled officials exerted themselves to save those under their charge. A revolutionary tribunal was formed from among the armed ruffians themselves, who examined the registers of the prison, and summoned the captives individually to undergo the form of a trial. If the judges, as was almost always the case, declared for death, their doom, to prevent the efforts of men in despair, was expressed in the words "Give the prisoner freedom." The victim was then thrust out into the street, or yard; he was despatched by men and women, who, with sleeves tucked up, arms dyed elbow-deep in blood, hands holding axes, pikes, and sabres, were executioners of the sentence; and, by the manner in which they did their office on the living, and mangled the bodies of the dead, showed that they occupied the post as much from pleasure as from love of hire. They often exchanged places; the judges going out to take the executioners' duty, the executioners, with reeking hands, sitting as judges in their turn. Mailard, a ruffian alleged to have distinguished himself at the siege of the Bastile, but better known by his exploits on the march to Versailles, presided during these brief and sanguinary investigations. His companions on the bench were persons of the same stamp. Yet there were occasions when they showed some transient gleams of humanity, and it is not unimportant to remark, that boldness had more influence on them than any appeal to mercy or compassion. An avowed royalist was occasionally dismissed uninjured, while the constitutionalists were sure to be massacred. Another trait of a singular nature is, that two of the ruffians who were appointed to guard one of these intended victims home in safety, as if they were acquitted, insisted on seeing his meeting with his family, seemed to share in the transports of the moment, and on taking leave, shook the hand of their late prisoner, while their own were clotted with the gore of his friends, and had been just raised to shed his own. Few, indeed, and brief, were these symptoms of relenting. In general, the doom of the prisoner was death, and that doom was instantly accomplished.