the atheists. They perplexed him as a politician intent upon
order, and they afflicted him sorely as an ardent disciple of
the Savoyard Vicar. Hébert, however, was so strong that it
needed some courage to attack him, nor did Robespierre dare to
withstand him to the face. But he did not flinch from making
an energetic assault upon atheism and the excesses of its
partisans. His admirers usually count his speech of the 21st
of November one of the most admirable of his oratorical
successes. ... 'Atheism [he said] is aristocratic. The idea of
a great being who watches over oppressed innocence and
punishes triumphant crime is essentially the idea of the
people. This is the sentiment of Europe and the Universe; it
is the sentiment of the French nation. That people is attached
neither to priests, nor to superstitions, nor to ceremonies;
it is attached only to worship in itself, or in other words to
the idea of an incomprehensible Power, the terror of
wrong-doers, the stay and comfort of virtue, to which it
delights to render words of homage that are all so many
anathemas against injustice and triumphant crime.' This is
Robespierre's favourite attitude, the priest posing as
statesman. ... Danton followed practically the same line,
though saying much less about it. 'If Greece,' he said in the
Convention, 'had its Olympian games, France too shall
solemnize her sans-culottid days. ... If we have not honoured
the priest of error and fanaticism, neither do we wish to
honour the priest of incredulity: we wish to serve the people.
I demand that there shall be an end of these anti-religious
masquerades in the Convention.' There was an end of the
masquerading, but the Hébertists still kept their ground.
Danton, Robespierre, and the Committee were all equally
impotent against them for some months longer. The
revolutionary force had been too strong to be resisted by any
government since the Paris insurgents had carried both king
and assembly in triumph from Versailles in the October of
1789. It was now too strong for those who had begun to strive
with all their might to build a new government out of the
agencies that had shattered the old to pieces. For some months
the battle which had been opened by Robespierre's remonstrance
against atheistic intolerance, degenerated into a series of
masked skirmishes. ... Collot D'Herbois had come back in hot
haste from Lyons. ... Carrier was recalled from Nantes. ...
The presence of these men of blood gave new courage and
resolution to the Hébertists. Though the alliance was
informal, yet as against Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and the
rest of the Indulgents, as well as against Robespierre, they
made common cause. Camille Desmoulins attacked Hébert in
successive numbers of a journal ['Le Vieux Cordelier'] that is
perhaps the one truly literary monument of this stage of the
revolution. Hébert retaliated by impugning the patriotism of
Desmoulins in the Club, and the unfortunate wit,
notwithstanding the efforts of Robespierre on his behalf, was
for a while turned out of the sacred precincts. ... Even
Danton himself was attacked (December, 1793) and the integrity
of his patriotism brought into question. Robespierre made an
energetic defence of his great rival in the hierarchy of
revolution. ... Robespierre, in whom spasmodical courage and
timidity ruled by rapid turns, began to suspect that he had
been premature; and a convenient illness, which some supposed
to have been feigned, excused his withdrawal for some weeks
from a scene where he felt that he could no longer see clear.
We cannot doubt that both he and Danton were perfectly assured
that the anarchic party must unavoidably roll headlong into the
abyss.
{1302}
But the hour of doom was uncertain. To make a mistake in the
right moment, to hurry the crisis, was instant death.
Robespierre was a more adroit calculator than Danton. ... His
absence during the final crisis of the anarchic party allowed
events to ripen, without committing him to that initiative in
dangerous action which he had dreaded on the 10th of August,
as he dreaded it on every other decisive day of this burning
time. The party of the Commune became more and more daring in
their invectives against the Convention and the Committees. At
length they proclaimed open insurrection. But Paris was cold,
and opinion was divided. In the night of the 13th of March,
Hébert, Chaumette, Clootz, were arrested. The next day
Robespierre recovered sufficiently to appear at the Jacobin
Club. He joined his colleagues of the Committee of Public
Safety in striking the blow. On the 24th of March the
Ultra-Revolutionist leaders were beheaded. The first bloody
breach in the Jacobin ranks was speedily followed by the
second. The Right wing of the opposition to the Committee soon
followed the Left down the ways to dusty death, and the
execution of the Anarchists only preceded by a week the arrest
of the Moderates. When the seizure of Danton had once before
been discussed in the Committee, Robespierre resisted the
proposal violently. We have already seen how he defended
Danton at the Jacobin Club. ... What produced this sudden
tack? ... His acquiescence in the ruin of Danton is
intelligible enough on the grounds of selfish policy. The
Committee [of Public Safety] hated Danton for the good reason
that he had openly attacked them, and his cry for clemency was
an inflammatory and dangerous protest against their system.
Now Robespierre, rightly or wrongly, had made up his mind that
the Committee was the instrument by which, and which only, he
could work out his own vague schemes of power and
reconstruction. And, in any case, how could he resist the
Committee? ... All goes to show that Robespierre was really
moved by nothing more than his invariable dread of being left
behind, of finding himself on the weaker side, of not seeming
practical and political enough. And having made up his mind
that the stronger party was bent on the destruction of the
Dantonists, he became fiercer than Billaud himself. ... Danton
had gone, as he often did, to his native village of
Arcis-sur-Aube, to seek repose and a little clearness of sight
in the night that wrapped him about. He was devoid of personal
ambition; he never had any humour for mere factious struggles.
... It is not clear that he could have done anything. The
balance of force, after the suppression of the Hébertists, was
irretrievably against him, as calculation had already revealed to
Robespierre. ... After the arrest, and on the proceedings to
obtain the assent of the Convention to the trial of Danton and
others of its members, one only of their friends had the
courage to rise and demand that they should be heard at the
bar. Robespierre burst out in cold rage; he asked whether they
had undergone so many heroic sacrifices, counting among them
these acts of 'painful severity,' only to fall under the yoke
of a band of domineering intriguers; and he cried out
impatiently that they would brook no claim of privilege, and
suffer no rotten idol. The word was felicitously chosen, for
the Convention dreaded to have its independence suspected, and
it dreaded this all the more because at this time its
independence did not really exist. The vote against Danton was
unanimous, and the fact that it was so is the deepest stain on
the fame of this assembly. On the afternoon of the 16th
Germinal (April 5, 1794), Paris in amazement and some
stupefaction saw the once dreaded Titan of the Mountain fast
bound in the tumbril, and faring towards the sharp-clanging
knife [with Camille Desmoulins and others]. 'I leave it all in
a frightful welter,' Danton is reported to have said. 'Not a
man of them has an idea of government. Robespierre will follow
me; he is dragged down by me. Ah, better be a poor fisherman
than meddle with the governing of men!' ... After the fall of
the anarchists and the death of Danton, the relations between
Robespierre and the Committees underwent a change. He, who had
hitherto been on the side of government, became in turn an
agency of opposition. He did this in the interest of ultimate
stability, but the difference between the new position and the
old is that he now distinctly associated the idea of a stable
republic with the ascendency of his own religious conceptions.
... The base of Robespierre's scheme of social reconstruction
now came clearly into view; and what a base! An official
Supreme Being and a regulated Terror. ... How can we speak
with decent patience of a man who seriously thought that he
should conciliate the conservative and theological elements of
the society at his feet, by such an odious opera-piece as the
Feast of the Supreme Being. This was designed as a triumphant
ripost to the Feast of Reason, which Chaumette and his friends
had celebrated in the winter. ... Robespierre persuaded the
Convention to decree an official recognition of the Supreme
Being, and to attend a commemorative festival in honour of
their mystic patron. He contrived to be chosen president for
the decade in which the festival would fall. When the day came
(20th Prairial, June 8, 1794), he clothed himself with more
than even his usual care. As he looked out from the windows of
the Tuileries upon the jubilant crowd in the gardens, he was
intoxicated with enthusiasm. 'O Nature,' he cried, 'how
sublime thy power, how full of delight! How tyrants must grow
pale at the idea of such a festival as this!' In pontifical
pride he walked at the head of the procession, with flowers
and wheat-ears in his hand, to the sound of chants and
symphonies and choruses of maidens. On the first of the great
basins in the gardens, David, the artist, had devised an
allegorical structure for which an inauspicious doom was
prepared. Atheism, a statue of life size, was throned in the
midst of an amiable group of human Vices, with Madness by her
side, and Wisdom menacing them with lofty wrath. Great are the
perils of symbolism. Robespierre applied a torch to Atheism, but
alas, the wind was hostile, or else Atheism and Madness were
damp. They obstinately resisted the torch, and it was hapless
Wisdom who took fire. ... The whole mummery was pagan. ... It
stands as the most disgusting and contemptible anachronism in
history."
_J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies, Second Series)._
ALSO IN
_T. Carlyle,
The French Revolution,
volume 3, book 6._
_G. H. Lewes,
Life of Robespierre,
chapters 19-20._
_L. Gronlund,
Ça ira: or Danton in the French Revolution,
chapter 6._
_J. Claretie,
Camille Desmoulins and his Wife,
chapters 5-6._
{1303}
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (March-July).
Withdrawal of Prussia from the European Coalition as an ally,
to become a mercenary.
Successes of the Republic.
Conquest of the Austrian Netherlands.
Advance to the Rhine.
Loss of Corsica.
Naval defeat off Ushant.
"While the alliance of the Great Powers was on the point of
dissolution from selfishness and jealousy, the French, with an
energy and determination, which, considering their
unparalleled difficulties, were truly heroic, had assembled
armies numbering nearly a million of men. The aggregate of the
allied forces did not much exceed 300,000. The campaign on the
Dutch and Flemish frontiers of France was planned at Vienna,
but had nearly been disconcerted at the outset by the refusal
of the Duke of York to serve under General Clairfait. ... The
Emperor settled the difficulty by signifying his intention to
take the command in person. Thus one incompetent prince who
knew little, was to be commanded by another incompetent prince
who knew nothing, about war; and the success of a great
enterprise was made subservient to considerations of punctilio
and etiquette. The main object of the Austrian plan was to
complete the reduction of the frontier fortresses by the
capture of Landrecy on the Sambre, and then to advance through
the plains of Picardy on Paris;--a plan which might have been
feasible the year before. ... The King of Prussia formally
withdrew from the alliance [March 13]; but condescended to
assume the character of a mercenary. In the spring of the
year, by a treaty with the English Government, his Prussian
Majesty undertook to furnish 62,000 men for a year, in
consideration of the sum of £1,800,000, of which Holland, by a
separate convention, engaged to supply somewhat less than a
fourth part. The organisation of the French army was effected
under the direction of Carnot. ... The policy of terror was
nevertheless applied to the administration of the army.
Custine and Houchard, who had commanded the last campaign, ...
were sent to the scaffold, because the arms of the republic
had failed to achieve a complete triumph under their
direction. ... Pichegru, the officer now selected to lead the
hosts of France, went forth to assume his command with the
knife of the executioner suspended over his head. His orders
were to expel the invaders from the soil and strongholds of
the republic, and to reconquer Belgium. The first step towards
the fulfilment of this commission was the recovery of the
three great frontier towns, Condé, Valenciennes, and Quesnoy.
The siege of Quesnoy was immediately formed; and Pichegru,
informed of or anticipating the plans of the Allies, disposed
a large force in front of Cambray, to intercept the operations
of ... the allied army upon Landrecy. ... On the 17th
[of April] a great action was fought in which the allies
obtained a success, sufficient to enable them to press the
siege of Landrecy. ... Pichegru, a few days after [April 26,
at the redoubts of Troisville] sustained a signal repulse from
the British, in an attempt to raise the siege of Landrecy; but
by a rapid and daring movement, he improved his defeat, and
seized the important post of Moucron. The results were, that
Clairfait was forced to fall back on Tournay; Courtray and
Menin surrendered to the French; and thus the right flanks of
the Allies were exposed. Landrecy, which, about the same time,
fell into the hands of the Allies, was but a poor compensation
for the reverses in West Flanders. The Duke of York, at the
urgent instance of the Emperor, marched to the relief of
Clairfait; but, in the meantime, the Austrian general, being
hard pressed, was compelled to fall back upon a position which
would enable him for a time to cover Bruges, Ghent, and
Ostend. The English had also to sustain a vigorous attack near
Tournay; but the enemy were defeated with the loss of 4,000
men. It now became necessary to risk a general action to save
Flanders, by cutting off that division of the French army
which had outflanked the Allies. By bad management and want of
concert this movement, which had been contrived by Colonel
Mack, the chief military adviser of the Emperor, was wholly
defeated [at Tourcoign, May 18]. ... The French took 1,500
prisoners and 60 pieces of cannon. A thousand English soldiers
lay dead on the field, and the Duke [of York] himself escaped
with difficulty. Four days after, Pichegru having collected a
great force, amounting, it has been stated, to 100,000 men,
made a grand attack upon the allied army [at Pont Achin]. ...
The battle raged from five in the morning until nine at night,
and was at length determined by the bayonet. ... In consequence
of this check, Pichegru fell back upon Lisle." It was after
this repulse that "the French executive, on the flimsy
pretence of a supposed attempt to assassinate Robespierre,
instigated by the British Government, procured a decree from
the Convention, that no English or Hanoverian prisoners should
be made. In reply to this atrocious edict, the Duke of York
issued a general order, enjoining forbearance to the troops
under his command. Most of the French generals ... refused to
become assassins. ... The decree was carried into execution in
a few instances only. ... The Allies gained no military
advantage by the action of Pont Achin on the 22nd of May. ...
The Emperor ... abandoned the army and retired to Vienna. He
left some orders and proclamations behind him, to which nobody
thought it worth while to pay any attention. On the 5th of June,
Pichegru invested Ypres, which Clairfait made two attempts to
retain, but without success. The place surrendered on the
17th; Clairfait retreated to Ghent; Walmoden abandoned Bruges;
and the Duke of York, forced to quit his position at Tournay,
encamped near Oudenarde. It was now determined by the Prince
of Coburg, who resumed the chief command after the departure
of the Emperor, to risk the fate of Belgium on a general
action, which was fought at Fleurus on the 26th of June. The
Austrians, after a desperate struggle, were defeated at all
points by the French army of the Sambre under Jourdan.
Charleroi having surrendered to the French ... and the Duke of
York being forced to retreat, any further attempt to save the
Netherlands was hopeless. Ostend and Mons, Ghent, Tournay, and
Oudenarde, were successively evacuated; and the French were
established at Brussels. When it was too late, the English
army was reinforced. ... It now only remained for the French
to recapture the fortresses on their own frontier which had
been taken from them in the last campaign. ...
{1304}
Landrecy ... fell without a struggle. Quesnoy ... made a
gallant [but vain] resistance. ... Valenciennes and Condé ...
opened their gates. ... The victorious armies of the Republic
were thus prepared for the conquest of Holland. ... The Prince
of Orange made an appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen;
but the republicans preferred the ascendancy of their faction
to the liberties of their country. ... The other military
operation's of the year, in which England was engaged, do not
require prolonged notice. The Corsicans, under the guidance of
their veteran chief, Paoli, ... sought the aid of England to
throw off the French yoke, and offered in return allegiance of
his countrymen to the British Crown. ... A small force was
despatched, and, after a series of petty operations, Corsica
was occupied by British troops, and proclaimed a part of the
British dominions. An expedition on a greater scale was sent
to the West Indies. Martinique, St. Lucie and Guadaloupe were
easily taken; but the large island of St. Domingo, relieved by
a timely arrival of succours from France, offered a formidable
[and successful] resistance. ... The campaign on the Rhine was
undertaken by the Allies under auspices ill calculated to
inspire confidence, or even hope. The King of Prussia, not
content with abandoning the cause, had done everything in his
power to thwart and defeat the operations of the Allies. ...
On the 22d of May, the Austrians crossed the Rhine and
attacked the French in their intrenchments without success. On
the same day, the Prussians defeated a division of the Republican
army [at Kaiserslautern], and advanced their head-quarters to
Deux-Ponts. Content with this achievement, the German armies
remained inactive for several weeks, when the French, having
obtained reinforcements, attacked the whole line of the German
posts. ... Before the end of the year the Allies were in full
retreat, and the Republicans in their turn had become the
invaders of Germany. They occupied the Electorate of Treves,
and they captured the important fort of Mannheim. Mentz also
was placed under a close blockade. ... At sea, England
maintained her ancient reputation. The French had made great
exertions to fit out a fleet, and 26 ships of the line were
assembled in the port of Brest," for the protecting of a
merchant fleet, laden with much needed food-supplies, expected
from America. Lord Howe, with an English fleet of 25 ships of
the line, was on the watch for the Brest fleet when it put to
sea. On the 1st of June he sighted and attacked it off Ushant,
performing the celebrated manœuvre of breaking the enemy's
line. Seven of the French ships were taken, one was sunk
during the battle, and 18, much crippled, escaped. The victory
caused great exultation in England, but it was fruitless, for
the American convoy was brought safely into Brest.
_W. Massey,
History of England during the reign of George III.,
chapter 35 (volume 3)._
ALSO IN
_Sir A. Alison,
History of Europe, 1789-1815,
chapter 16 (volume 4)._
_F. C. Schlosser,
History of the 18th Century,
volume 6, division 2, chapter 2, section 3._
_Capt. A. T. Mahan,
Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution
and Empire, chapter 8 (volume 1)._
FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (June-July).
The monstrous Law of the 22d Prairial.
The climax of the Reign of Terror.
A summary of its horrors.
"On the day of the Feast of the Supreme Being, the guillotine
was concealed in the folds of rich hangings. It was the 20th
of Prairial. Two days later Couthon proposed to the Convention
the memorable Law of the 22d Prairial [June 10]. Robespierre
was the draftsman, and the text of it still remains in his own
writing. This monstrous law is simply the complete abrogation
of all law. Of all laws ever passed in the world it is the
most nakedly iniquitous. ... After the probity and good
judgment of the tribunal, the two cardinal guarantees in state
trials are accurate definition, and proof. The offence must be
capable of precise description, and the proof against an
offender must conform to strict rule. The Law of Prairial
violently infringed all three of these essential conditions of
judicial equity. First, the number of the jury who had power
to convict was reduced. Second, treason was made to consist in
such vague and infinitely elastic kinds of action as inspiring
discouragement, misleading opinion, depraving manners,
corrupting patriots, abusing the principles of the Revolution
by perfidious applications. Third, proof was to lie in the
conscience of the jury; there was an end of preliminary
inquiry, of witnesses in defence, and of counsel for the
accused. Any kind of testimony was evidence, whether material
or moral, verbal or written, if it was of a kind 'likely to
gain the assent of a man of reasonable mind.' Now, what was
Robespierre's motive in devising this infernal instrument? ...
To us the answer seems clear. We know what was the general aim
in Robespierre's mind at this point in the history of the
Revolution. His brother Augustin was then the representative
of the Convention with the army of Italy, and General
Bonaparte was on terms of close intimacy with him. Bonaparte
said long afterwards ... that he saw long letters from
Maximilian to Augustin Robespierre, all blaming the
Conventional Commissioners [sent to the provinces]--Tallien,
Fouché, Barras, Collot, and the rest--for the horrors they
perpetrated, and accusing them of ruining the Revolution by
their atrocities. Again, there is abundant testimony that
Robespierre did his best to induce the Committee of Public
Safety to bring those odious malefactors to justice. The text
of the Law ... discloses the same object. The vague phrases of
depraving manners and applying revolutionary principles
perfidiously, were exactly calculated to smite the band of
violent men whose conduct was to Robespierre the scandal of
the Revolution. And there was a curious clause in the law as
originally presented, which deprived the Convention of the
right of preventing measures against its own members.
Robespierre's general design in short was to effect a further
purgation of the Convention. ... If Robespierre's design was
what we believe it to have been, the result was a ghastly
failure. The Committee of Public Safety would not consent to
apply his law against the men for whom he had specially
designed it. The frightful weapon which he had forged was
seized by the Committee of General Security, and Paris was
plunged into the fearful days of the Great Terror. The number
of persons put to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal before
the Law of Prairial had been comparatively moderate. From the
creation of the Tribunal in April 1793, down to the execution
of the Hébertists in March 1794, the number of persons
condemned to death was 505.
{1305}
From the death of the Hébertists down to the death of
Robespierre, the number of the condemned was 2,158. One-half
of the entire number of victims, namely, 1,356, were
guillotined after the Law of Prairial. ... A man was informed
against; he was seized in his bed at five in the morning; at
seven he was taken to the Conciergerie; at nine he received
information of the charge against him; at ten he went into the
dock; by two in the afternoon he was condemned; by four his
head lay in the executioner's basket."
_J. Morley,
Robespierre
(Critical Miscellanies: Second Series)._
"Single indictments comprehended 20 or 30 people taken
promiscuously--great noblemen from Paris, day labourers from
Marseilles, sailors from Brest, peasants from Alsace--who were
accused of conspiring together to destroy the Republic. All
examination, discussion, and evidence were dispensed with; the
names of the victims were hardly read out to the jury, and it
happened, more than once, that the son was mistaken for the
father--an entirely innocent person for the one really
charged--and sent to the guillotine. The judges urged the jury
to pass sentences of death, with loud threats; members of the
Government committees attended daily, and applauded the bloody
verdicts with ribald jests. On this spot at least the strife
of parties was hushed."
_H. von Sybel,
History of the French Revolution,
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 4)._
"The first murders committed in 1793 proceeded from a real
irritation caused by danger. Such perils had now ceased; the
republic was victorious; people now slaughtered not from
indignation, but from the atrocious habit which they had
contracted. ... According to the law, the testimony of
witnesses was to be dispensed with only when there existed
material or moral proofs; nevertheless no witnesses were
called, as it was alleged that proofs of this kind existed in
every case. The jurors did not take the trouble to retire to
the consultation room. They gave their opinions before the
audience, and sentence was immediately pronounced. The accused
had scarcely time to rise and to mention their names. One day,
there was a prisoner whose name was not upon the list of the
accused, and who said to the Court, 'I am not accused; my name
is not on your list.' 'What signifies that?' said Fouquier,
'give it quick!' He gave it, and was sent to the scaffold like
the others. ... The most extraordinary blunders were
committed. ... More than once victims were called long after
they had perished. There were hundreds of acts of accusation
quite ready, to which there was nothing to add but the
designation of the individuals. ... The printing-office was
contiguous to the hall of the tribunal: the forms were kept
standing, the title, the motives, were ready composed; there
was nothing but the names to be added. These were handed
through a small loop-hole to the overseer. Thousands of copies
were immediately worked off and plunged families into mourning
and struck terror into the prisons. The hawkers came to sell
the bulletin of the tribunal under the prisoners' windows,
crying, 'Here are the names of those who have gained prizes in
the lottery of St. Guillotine.' The accused were executed on
the breaking up of the court, or at latest on the morrow, if
the day was too far advanced. Ever since the passing of the
Law of the 22d of Prairial, victims perished at the rate of 50
or 60 a day. 'That goes well,' said Fouquier-Tinville; 'heads
fall like tiles:' and he added, 'It must go better still next
decade; I must have 450 at least.'"
_A. Thiers,
History of the French Revolution
(American edition), volume 3, pages 63-66._
"One hundred and seventy-eight tribunals, of which 40 are
ambulatory, pronounce in every part of the territory sentences
of death which are immediately executed on the spot. Between
April 6, 1793, and Thermidor 9, year II. [July 27, 1794], that
of Paris has 2,625 persons guillotined, while the provincial
judges do as much work as the Paris judges. In the small town
of Orange alone, they guillotine 331 persons. In the single
town of Arras they have 299 men and 93 women guillotined. At
Nantes, the revolutionary tribunals and military committees
have, on the average, 100 persons a day guillotined, or shot,
in all 1971. In the city of Lyons the revolutionary committee
admit 1684 executions, while Cadillot, one of Robespierre's
correspondents, advises him of 6,000.--The statement of these
murders is not complete, but 17,000 have been enumerated. ...
Even excepting those who had died fighting or who, taken with
arms in their hands, were shot down or sabred on the spot,
there were 10,000 persons slaughtered without trial in the
province of Anjou alone. ... It is estimated that, in the
eleven western departments, the dead of both sexes and of all
ages exceeded 400,000.--Considering the programme and
principles of the Jacobin sect, this is no great number; they
might have killed a good many more. But time was wanting;
during their short reign they did what they could with the
instrument in their hands. Look at their machine. ...
Organised March 30 and April 6,1793, the Revolutionary
Committees and the Revolutionary Tribunal had but seventeen
months in which to do their work. They did not drive ahead
with all their might until after the fall of the Girondists,
and especially after September, 1793, that is to say for a
period of eleven months. Its loose wheels were not screwed up
and the whole was not in running order under the impulse of
the central motor until after December, 1793, that is to say
during eight months. Perfected by the Law of Prairial 22, it
works for the past two months faster and better than before.
... Baudot and Jean Bon St. Andre, Carrier, Antonelle and
Guffroy had already estimated the lives to be taken at several
millions, and, according to Collot d'Herbois, who had a lively
imagination, 'the political perspiration should go on freely,
and not stop until from twelve to fifteen million Frenchmen
had been destroyed.'"
_H. A. Taine,
The French Revolution,
book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3)._
ALSO IN
_W. Smyth,
Lectures on the History of the French Revolution,
Lectures 39-42 (volume 2)._
_Abbé Dumesnil,
Recollections of the Reign of Terror._
_Count Beugnot,
Life,
volume 1, chapters 7-8._