armed camp for the protection of Paris. Much opposition was,
however, raised to the project, and the Assembly decreed (June
6) that 20,000 volunteers, recruited in the departments,
should meet at Paris to take part in the celebration of a
federal festival on July 14, the third anniversary of the fall
of the Bastille. The real object of those who supported the
decree was to have a force at Paris with which to maintain
mastery over the city should the Allies penetrate into the
interior. Louis left the decree unsanctioned, as he had the
one directed against nonjurors. The agitators of the sections
sought to get up an armed demonstration against this exercise
of the King's constitutional prerogative. Though armed
demonstrations were illegal, the municipality offered but a
perfunctory and half-hearted resistance. ... Louis, irritated
at the pressure put on him by Roland, Clavière, and Servan, to
sanction the two decrees, dismissed the three ministers from
office (June 13). Dumouriez, who had quarreled with his
colleagues, supported the King in taking this step, but in
face of the hostility of the Assembly himself resigned office
(June 15). Three days later a letter from Lafayette was read
in the Assembly. The general denounced the Jacobins as the
authors of all disorders, called on the Assembly to maintain
the prerogatives of the crown, and intimated that his army
would not submit to see the constitution violated (June 18).
Possibly the dismissal of the ministers and the writing of
this letter were measures concerted between the King and
Lafayette. In any case the King's motive was to excite
division between the constitutionalists and the Girondists, so
as to weaken the national defence. The dismissal of the ministers
was, however, regarded by the Girondists as a proof of the
truth of their worst suspicions, and no measures were taken to
prevent an execution of the project of making an armed, and
therefore illegal, demonstration against the royal policy. On
June 20, thousands of persons, carrying pikes or whatever
weapon came to hand, and accompanied by several battalions of
the national guard, marched from St. Antoine to the hall of
the Assembly. A deputation read an address demanding the
recall of the ministers. Afterwards the whole of the
procession, men, women and children, dancing, singing, and
carrying emblems, defiled through the chamber. Instigated by
their leaders they broke into the Tuileries. The King, who
took his stand on a window seat, was mobbed for four hours. To
please his unwelcome visitors, he put on his head a red cap,
such as was now commonly worn at the Jacobins as an emblem of
liberty, in imitation of that which was once worn by the
emancipated Roman slave. He declared his intention to observe
the constitution, but neither insult nor menace could prevail
on him to promise his sanction to the two decrees. The Queen,
separated from the King, sat behind a table on which she
placed the Dauphin, exposed to the gaze and taunts of the
crowds which slowly traversed the palace apartments. At last,
but not before night, the mob left the Tuileries without doing
further harm, and order was again restored. This insurrection
and the slackness, if not connivance, of the municipal
authorities, excited a widespread feeling of indignation
amongst constitutionalists. Lafayette came to Paris, and at
the bar of the Assembly demanded in person what he had before
demanded by letter (June 28). With him, as with other former
members of the constituent Assembly, it was a point of honour
to shield the persons of the King and Queen from harm. Various
projects for their removal from Paris were formed, but policy
and sentiment alike forbade Marie Antoinette to take advantage
of them. ... The one gleam of light on the horizon of this
unhappy Queen was the advance of the Allies. 'Better die,' she
one day bitterly exclaimed, 'than be saved by Lafayette and
the constitutionalists.' There was, no doubt, a possibility of
the Allies reaching Paris that summer, but this enormously
increased the danger of the internal situation. ... To rouse
the nation to a sense of peril the Assembly [July 11] caused
public proclamation to be made in every municipality that the
country was in danger. The appeal was responded to with
enthusiasm, and within six weeks more than 60,000 volunteers
enlisted. The Duke of Brunswick, the commander-in-chief of the
allied forces, published a manifesto, drawn up by the
emigrants. If the authors of this astounding proclamation had
deliberately intended to serve the purpose of those Frenchmen
who were bent on kindling zeal for the war, they could not
have done anything more likely to serve their purpose.
{1277}
The powers required the country to submit unconditionally to
Louis's mercy. All who offered resistance were to be treated
as rebels to their King, and Paris was to suffer military
execution if any harm befell the royal family. ... Meanwhile,
a second insurrection, which had for its object the King's
deposition, was in preparation. The Assembly, after declaring
the country in danger, had authorised the sections of Paris,
as well as the administrative authorities throughout France,
to meet at any moment. The sections had, in consequence, been
able to render themselves entirely independent of the
municipality. In each of the sectional or primary assemblies
from 700 to 3,000 active citizens had the right to vote, but
few cared to attend, and thus it constantly happened that a
small active minority spoke and acted in the name of an
apathetic constitutional majority. Thousands of volunteers
passed through Paris on their way to the frontier, some of
whom were purposely retained to take part in the insurrection.
The municipality of Marseilles, at the request of Barbaroux, a
young friend of the Rolands, sent up a band of 500 men, who
first sung in Paris the verses celebrated as the
'Marseillaise' [see MARSEILLAISE]. The danger was the greater
since every section had its own cannon and a special body of
cannoneers, who nearly to a man were on the side of the
revolutionists. The terrified and oscillating Assembly made no
attempt to suppress agitation, but acquitted (August 8)
Lafayette, by 406 against 280 votes, of a charge of treason
made against him by the left, on the ground that he had sought
to intimidate the Legislature. This vote was regarded as
tantamount to a refusal to pass sentence of deposition on
Louis. On the following night the insurrection began. Its
centre was in the Faubourg of St. Antoine, and it was
organised by but a small number of men. Mandat, the
commander-in-chief of the national guard, was an energetic
constitutionalist, who had taken well-concerted measures for
the defence of the Tuileries. But the unscrupulousness of the
conspirators was more than a match for his zeal. Soon after
midnight commissioners from 28 sections met together at the
Hotel de Ville, and forced the Council-General of the
Municipality to summon Mandat before it, and to send out
orders to the officers of the guard in contradiction to those
previously given. Mandat, unaware of what was passing, obeyed
the summons, and on his arrival was arrested and murdered.
After this the commissioners dispersed the lawful council and
usurped its place. At the Tuileries were about 950 Swiss and
more than 4,000 national guards. Early in the morning the
first bands of insurgents appeared. On the fidelity of the
national guards it was impossible to rely; and the royal
family, attended by a small escort, left the palace, and
sought refuge with the Assembly [which held its sessions in
the old Riding-School of the Tuileries, not far from the
palace, at one side of the gardens]. Before their departure
orders had been given to the Swiss to repel force by force,
and soon the sound of firing spread alarm through Paris. The
King sent the Swiss instructions to retire, which they
punctually obeyed. One column, passing through the Tuileries
gardens, was shot down almost to a man. The rest reached the
Assembly in safety, but several were afterwards massacred on
their way to prison. For 24 hours the most frightful anarchy
prevailed. Numerous murders were committed in the streets. The
assailants, some hundreds of whom had perished, sacked the
palace, and killed all the men whom they found there."
_B. M. Gardiner,
The French Revolution,
chapter 5._
"Terror and fury ruled the hour. The Swiss, pressed on from
without, paralysed from within, have ceased to shoot; but not
to be shot. What shall they do? Desperate is the moment.
Shelter or instant death: yet How, Where? One party flies out
by the Rue de l'Echelle; is destroyed utterly, 'en entier.' A
second, by the other side, throws itself into the Garden;
'hurrying across a keen fusillade'; rushes suppliant into the
National Assembly; finds pity and refuge in the back benches
there. The third, and largest, darts out in column, 300
strong, towards the Champs Elysées: 'Ah, could we but reach
Courbevoye, where other Swiss are!' Wo! see, in such fusillade
the column 'soon breaks itself by diversity of opinion,' into
distracted segments, this way and that;--to escape in holes,
to die fighting from street to street. The firing and
murdering will not cease: not yet for long. The red Porters of
Hotels are shot at, be they 'Suisse' by nature, or Suisse only
in name. The very Firemen, who pump and labour on that smoking
Carrousel [which the mob had fired]; are shot at; why should
the Carrousel not burn? Some Swiss take refuge in private
houses; find that mercy too does still dwell in the heart of
man. The brave Marseillese are merciful, late so wroth; and
labour to save. ... But the most are butchered, and even
mangled. Fifty (some say Fourscore) were marched as prisoners,
by National Guards, to the Hôtel-de-Ville: the ferocious
people bursts through on them, in the Place-de-Greve;
massacres them to the last man. 'O Peuple, envy of the
universe!' Peuple, in mad Gaelic effervescence! Surely few
things in the history of carnage are painfuler. What
ineffaceable red streak, flickering so sad in the memory, is
that, of this poor column of red Swiss, 'breaking itself in
the confusion of opinions'; dispersing, into blackness and
death! Honour to you, brave men; honourable pity, through long
times! Not martyrs were ye; and yet almost more. He was no
King of yours, this Louis; and he forsook you like a King of
shreds and patches: ye were but sold to him for some poor
sixpence a-day; yet would ye work for your wages, keep your
plighted word: The work now was to die; and ye did it. Honour
to you, O Kinsmen; and may the old Deutsch 'Biederkeit' and'
Tapferkeit,' and Valour which is Worth and Truth, be they
Swiss, be they Saxon, fail in no age!"
_T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 2, book 6, chapter 7._
ALSO IN:
_A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 1, pages 266-330._
_Madame Campan,
Memoirs of Marie Antoinette,
volume 2, chapters 9-10._
_J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapter 3, sections 4-5._
_A. F. Bertrand de Moleville,
Annals of the French Revolution,
part 2, chapters 18-28 (volumes 6-7)._
_Duchess de Tourzel,
Memoirs,
volume 2, chapters 8-10._
_Count M. Dumas,
Memoirs,
chapter 4 (volume 1)._
{1278}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Power seized by the insurrectionary Commune of Paris.
Dethronement and imprisonment of the King.
Conflict between the Girondins of the Assembly and the
Jacobins of the Commune.
Alarm at the advance of the Prussians.
The searching of the city for suspects.
Arrest of 3,000.
"While the Swiss were being murdered, the Legislative Assembly
were informed that a deputation wished to enter. At the head
of this deputation appeared Huguenin, who announced that a new
municipality for Paris had been formed, and that the old one
had resigned. This was, indeed, the fact. On the departure of
Santerre the commissioners of the sections had given orders to
the legitimate council-general of the municipality to resign,
and the council-general, startled by the events which were
passing, consented. The commissioners then called themselves
the new municipality, and proceeded, as municipal officers, to
send a deputation to the Assembly. The deputation almost
ordered that the Assembly should immediately declare the
king's dethronement, and, in the presence of the unfortunate
monarch himself, Vergniaud mounted the tribune, and proposed,
on behalf of the Committee of Twenty-one, that the French
people should be invited to elect a National Convention to
draw up a new Constitution, and that the chief of the
executive power, as he called the king, should be
provisionally suspended from his functions until the new
Convention had pronounced what measures should be adopted to
establish a new government and the reign of liberty and
equality. The motion was carried, and was countersigned by one
of the king's ministers, De Joly; and thus the old monarchy of
the Bourbons in France came to an end. But the Assembly had
not yet completed its work. The ministry was dismissed, as not
having the confidence of the people, and the Minister of War,
d'Abancourt, was ordered to be tried by the court at Orleans
for treason, in having brought the Swiss Guards to Paris. The
Assembly then prepared to elect new ministers. Roland,
Clavière, and Servan were recalled by acclamation to their
former posts. ... Danton was elected Minister of Justice by
222 votes against 60; Gaspard Monge, the great mathematician,
was elected Minister of Marine, on the nomination of
Condorcet; and Lebrun-Tondu, a friend of Brissot and
Dumouriez, and a former abbé, to the department of Foreign
Affairs. At the bidding of the self-elected municipality of
Paris the king had been suspended, and a new ministry
inaugurated, and this new municipality, which, it must be
remembered, only represented 28 sections of Paris, next
proceeded to send its decrees all over France. It was joined
on this very day by some of the extreme men who hoped through
its means to force a republic on France--notably by Camille
Desmoulins and Dubois-Dubais; and on the 11th it was still
further reinforced by the presence of Robespierre,
Billaud-Varenne, and Marat. The Legislative Assembly had
become a mere instrument in the hands of the Committee of
Twenty-one [a committee specially charged with watchfulness
over the safety of the public, and which foreshadowed the
later famous Committee of Public Safety]. The majority of the
deputies either left Paris, or, if they belonged to the right,
hid themselves, while those of the left had to obey every
order of their leaders, and left the transaction of temporary
business to the Committee of Twenty-one. This committee
practically ruled France for forty days, until the meeting of
the Convention; the Assembly always accepted its propositions
and sent the deputies it nominated on important missions; its
only rival was the insurrectionary commune, and the
internecine warfare between the Jacobins and the Girondins was
foreshadowed in the struggle between this Commune and the
Committee of Twenty-one. For, while the extreme Jacobins
filled the new Commune of Paris, the Committee of Twenty-one
consisted of Girondins and Feuillants, Brissot was its
president, Vergniaud its reporter, and Gensonné, Condorcet,
Lasource, Guadet, Lacépède, Lacuèe, Pastoret, Muraire, Delmas,
and Guyton-Morveau were amongst its members. On the evening of
August 10 the Assembly decreed that the difference between
active and passive citizens should be abolished, and that
every Frenchman of the age of 25 should have a vote for the
Convention. ... The last sight the king might have seen on the
night of August 10 was his palace of the Tuileries in flames,
where, for mischief, fire had been set to the stables. It
spread from building to building, and the Assembly only took
steps to check it when it threatened to spread to the houses
of the Rue Saint Honoré. ... On the day after this terrible
night the king was informed that rooms had been found for him
in the Convent of the Feuillants; and to four monastic cells,
which had not been inhabited since the dissolution of the
monastery two years before, the royal family was led, and
round them was placed a strong guard. Yet they were no more
prisoners in the Convent of the Feuillants than they had been
in the splendid palace of the Tuileries. ... The king's
nominal authority was annihilated; but though the course of
events left him a prisoner, it cannot be said that his
influence was diminished, for he had none left to diminish. It
was to the Girondins, rather than to the king, that the
results of August 10 brought unpleasant surprises. ... The
real power had gone to the Commune of Paris, and this was very
clearly perceived by Robespierre and by Marat. ... Though
Marat was received with the loudest cheers by the
insurrectionary commune, Robespierre was the man who really
became its leader. He had long expected the shock which had
just taken place, and had prepared himself for the crisis. The
first requisition was, of course, for a Convention. This had
been granted on the very first day. The second demand of the
Commune was the safe custody of the king, so that he should
not be able to escape to the army. This was conceded by the
Assembly on August 12, when they ordered that the king and
royal family should be taken to the old tower of the Temple,
and there strictly guarded under the superintendence of the
insurrectionary commune. Lafayette's sudden flight greatly
strengthened the position of the Commune of Paris. ...
Relieved from the fear of Lafayette's turning against them,
both the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly and the
Jacobins in the insurrectionary commune turned to the pursuit
of their own special plans, and naturally soon came into
violent collision. ... The Girondins were, above all things,
men of ideas; the Jacobins, above all things, practical men:
and of the issue of a struggle between them there could be
little doubt, though, at this period the Girondins had the
advantage of the best position. On August 15 the final blow
was struck at the unfortunate Feuillants, or
Constitutionalists. The last ministers of the king, as well
Duport du Tertre, Bertrand de Moleville, and Duportail, were
all ordered to be arrested, with Barnave and Charles de
Lameth. The Assembly followed up this action by establishing
the special tribunal of August 17, which held its first
sitting on the same evening at the Hotel de Ville.
{1279}
Robespierre was elected president, and refused the office. ...
The new tribunal was too slow to satisfy the leaders of the
Commune of Paris, for its first prisoner, Laporte, the old
intendant of the civil list, was not judged until August 21,
and then acquitted. This news made the Commune lose all
patience, and they determined to urge the Assembly to more
energetic measures. Under the pressure of the Commune the
Assembly took vigorous measures indeed. All the leaders of the
émigrés were sequestrated; all ecclesiastics who would not
take the oath were to be transported to French Guiana, and it
was decreed that the National Guard should enlist every man,
whether an active or a passive citizen. Much of this vigour on
the part of the Assembly was due, not only to the pressure of
the Commune, but to the rapid advance of the Prussians. ...
The Assembly ... decreed that an army of 30,000 men should be
raised in Paris, and that every man who had a musket issued to
him should be punished with death if he did not march at once.
... On August 28, on the motion of Danton, now Minister of
Justice, a general search for arms and suspects was ordered.
The gates of the city were closed on August 30; every street
was ordered to be illuminated; bodies of national guards
entered each house and searched it from top to bottom. Barely
1,000 muskets were seized, but more than 8,000 prisoners were
taken and shut up, not only in the prisons, but in all the
largest convents of Paris, which were turned into houses of
detention. Who should be arrested as a suspect depended
entirely on the municipal officer who happened to examine the
house, and these men acted under the orders of a special
committee established by the Commune, at the head of which sat
Marat. ... The residents in Paris at the time of the
Revolution seem to have been more struck by this
house-to-house visitation than by many other events which were
far more horrible."
_H. M. Stephens,
History of the French Revolution,
volume 2, chapter 4._
ALSO IN:
_Grace D. Elliot,
Journal of My Life during the French Revolution,
chapter 4._
_Gouverneur Morris,
Life and Correspondence.,
edited by Sparks, volume 2, pages 203-217._
_G. Long,
France and its Revolutions,
chapter 29._
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August).
Lafayette's unsuccessful resistance to the Jacobins.
His withdrawal from France.
"The news of the 10th of August was carried to Lafayette by
one of his own officers who happened to be in Paris on
business. He learned that the throne was overturned and the
Assembly in subjection, but he could not believe that the
cause of the constitutional monarchy was abandoned without a
struggle. He announced to the army the events that had taken
place, and conjured the men to remain true to the king and
constitution. The commissioners despatched by the Commune of
Paris to announce to the different armies the change of
government and to exact oaths of fidelity to it soon arrived
at Sedan within Lafayette's command. The general had them
brought before the municipality of Sedan and interrogated
regarding their mission. Convinced, from their own account,
that they were the agents of a faction which had unlawfully
seized upon power, he ordered their arrest and had them
imprisoned. Lafayette's moral influence in the army and the
country was still so great that the Jacobins knew that they
must either destroy him or win him over to their side. The
latter course was preferred. ... The imprisoned commissioners,
therefore, requested a private conference with Lafayette, and
offered him, on the part of their superiors in Paris, whatever
executive power he desired in the new government. It is
needless to say that Lafayette, whose sole aim was to
establish liberty in his country, refused to entertain the
idea of associating himself with the despotism of the mob. He
caused his own soldiers to renew their oath of fidelity to the
king, and communicated with Luckner on the situation. ...
Meanwhile, emissaries from the Commune were sent to Sedan to
influence the soldiers by bribes and threats to renounce their
loyalty to their commander. All the other armies and provinces
to which commissioners had been sent had received them and
taken the new oaths. Lafayette found himself alone in his
resistance. His attitude acquired, every day, more the
appearance of rebellion against authorities recognized by the
rest of France. New commissioners arrived, bringing with them
his dismissal from command. The army was wavering between
attachment to their general and obedience to government. On
the 19th of August, the Jacobins, seeing that they could not
win him over, caused the Assembly to declare him a traitor.
Lafayette had now to take an immediate resolution. France had
declared for the Paris Commune. The constitutional monarchy
was irretrievably destroyed. For the general to dispute with
his appointed successor the command of the army was to provoke
further disorders in a cause that had ceased to be that of the
nation and become only his own. Three possible courses
remained open to him,--to accept the Jacobin overtures and
become a part of their bloody despotism; to continue his
resistance and give his head to the guillotine; to leave the
country. He resolved to seek an asylum in a neutral territory
with the hope, as he himself somewhat naively expressed it,
'some day to be again of service to liberty and to France.'
Lafayette made every preparation for the safety of his troops,
placing them under the orders of Luckner until the arrival of
Dumouriez, the new general in command. He publicly
acknowledged responsibility for the arrest of the
commissioners and the defiance of Sedan to the Commune, in
order that the municipal officers who had supported him might
escape punishment. He included in his party his
staff-officers, whose association with him would have
subjected them to the fury of the Commune, and some others who
had also been declared traitors on account of obedience to his
orders. He then made his way to Bouillon, on the extreme
frontier. There, dismissing the escort, and sending back final
orders for the security of the army, he rode with his
companions into a foreign land."
_B. Tuckerman,
Life of Lafayette,
volume 2, chapter 3._
{1280}
FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (August-September).
The September Massacres in the Paris prisons.
The house-to-house search for suspects was carried on during
the night of August 29 and the following day. "The next
morning, at daybreak, the Mairie, the sections, the ancient
prisons of Paris, and the convents that had been converted
into prisons, were crowded with prisoners. They were summarily
interrogated, and half of them, the victims of error or
precipitation, were set at liberty, or claimed by their
sections. The remainder were distributed in the prisons of the
Abbaye Saint Germain, the Conciergerie, the Châtelet, La
Force, the Luxembourg, and the ancient monasteries of the
Bernardins, Saint Firmin, and the Carmes; Bicêtre and the
Salpêtrière also opened their gates to receive fresh inmates.
The three days that followed this night were employed by the
commissaries in making a selection of the prisoners. Already
their death was projected. ... "We must purge the prisons, and
leave no traitors behind us when we hasten to the frontiers.'
Such was the cry put into the mouth of the people by Marat and
Danton. Such was the attitude of Danton on the brink of these
crimes. As for the part of Robespierre, it was the same as in
all these crises--on the debate concerning war, on the 20th of
June, and on the 10th of August. He did not act, he blamed;
but he left the event to itself, and when once accomplished he
accepted it as a progressive step of the Revolution. ... On
Sunday, the 2d of September, at three o'clock in the
afternoon, the signal for the massacre was given by one of
those accidents that seem so perfectly the effect of chance.
Five coaches, each containing six priests, started from the
Hôtel-de-Ville to the prison of the Abbaye ... escorted by
weak detachments of Avignonnais and Marseillais, armed with
pikes and sabers. ... Groups of men, women and children
insulted them as they passed, and their escort joined in the
invective threats and outrages of the populace. ... The
émeute, increasing in number at every step across the Rue
Dauphine, was met by another mob, that blocked up the
Carrefour Bussy, where municipal officers received enrolments
in the open air. The carriages stopped; and a man, forcing his
way through the escort, sprung on the step of the first
carriage, plunged his saber twice into the body of one of the
priests, and displayed it reeking with blood: the people
uttered a cry of horror. 'This frightens you, cowards!' said
the assassin, with a smile of disdain; 'You must accustom
yourselves to look on death.' With these [words] he again
plunged his saber into the carriage and continued to strike.
... The coaches slowly moved on, and the assassin, passing
from one to the other, and clinging with one hand to the door,
stabbed at random at all he could reach; while the assassins
of Avignon, who formed part of their escort, plunged their
bayonets into the interior; and the pikes, pointed against the
windows, prevented any of the priests from leaping into the
street. The long line of carriages moving slowly on, and
leaving a bloody trace behind them, the despairing cries and
gestures of the priests, the ferocious shouts of their
butchers, the yells of applause of the populace, announced
from a distance their arrival to the prisoners of the Abbaye.
The cortège stopped at the door of the prison, and the
soldiers of the escort dragged out by the feet eight dead
bodies. The priests who had escaped, or who were only wounded,
precipitated themselves into the prison; four of them were
seized and massacred on the threshold. ... The prisoners ...
cooped up in the Abbaye heard this prelude to murder at their
gates. ... The internal wickets were closed on them, and they
received orders to return to their chambers, as if to answer
the muster-roll. A fearful spectacle was visible in the outer
court: the last wicket opening into it had been transformed
into a tribunal; and around a large table--covered with
papers, writing materials, the registers of the prisons,
glasses, bottles, pistols, sabers, and pipes--were seated
twelve judges, whose gloomy features and athletic proportions
stamped them men of toil, debauch or blood. Their attire was
that of the laboring classes. ... Two or three of them
attracted attention by the whiteness of their hands and the
elegance of their shape; and that betrayed the presence of men
of intellect, purposely mingled with these men of action to
guide them. A man in a gray coat, a saber at his side, pen in
his hand, and whose inflexible features seemed as though they
were petrified, was seated at the center of the table, and
presided over the tribunal. This was the Huissier Maillard,
the idol of the mobs of the Faubourg Saint Marceau ... an
actor in the days of October, the 20th of June, and the 10th
of August. ... He had just returned from the Carmes, where he
had organized the massacre. It was not chance that had brought
him to the Abbaye at the precise moment of the arrival of the
prisoners, and with the prison registers in his hand. He had
received, the previous evening, the secret orders of Marat,
through the members of the Comité de Surveillance. Danton had
sent for the registers to the prison, and gone through them;
and Maillard was shown those he was to acquit and condemn. If
the prisoner was acquitted, Maillard said, 'Let this gentleman
be set at liberty'; if condemned, a voice said, 'A la Force.'
At these words the outer door opened, and the prisoner fell
dead as he crossed the threshold. The massacre commenced with
the Swiss, of whom there were 150 at the Abbaye, officers and
soldiers. ... They fell, one after another, like sheep in a
slaughter-house. The tumbrils were not sufficient to carry
away the corpses, and they were piled up on each side of the
court to make room for the rest to die: their commander, Major
Reding, was the last to fall. ... After the Swiss, the king's
guards, imprisoned in the Abbaye, were judged en masse. ...
Their massacre lasted a long time, for the people, excited by
what they had drank--brandy mingled with gun-powder-and
intoxicated by the sight of blood, prolonged their tortures.
... The whole night was scarcely enough to slay and strip
them."
_A. de Lamartine,
History of the Girondists,
book 25 (volume 2)._