THE RED FLAG.
The first to fall was the Duc of Orleans (father of Louis Philippe,
King of the French). He had done nothing against the interests of the
republic, but his birth was a crime, and his death was decided on.
The Prince and his sons were at table when the fatal indictment
arrived.
“So much the better,” said he. “This must end one way or the other.
Kiss me, children. And I wonder of what they accuse me?” he said,
opening the paper. “The scoundrels!” he added; “they accuse me of
nothing. Come, boys, eat; for this summons is indeed good news.”
He was taken to Paris, where, at this time, no man of mark, being put
upon his trial, escaped the guillotine.
The one plausible accusation brought against Orleans must have
compressed his heart.
“Did you not vote the King’s death in the hope of succeeding to his
throne?”
“No; I obeyed my heart and my conscience.”
He heard his sentence calmly, despite the fact of his cowardice in
his early years; and he replied sarcastically to his judges, “Since
you were determined to condemn me, you should have found better
pretexts than you have; for, as it is, you will deceive no man into
believing that you think me guilty. I am in the way. And you too,”
he said, turning to a once Marquis d’Autonelle, an old friend,—“you
to condemn me! Finally,” he continued, “since I am to die, I demand
not to be left in gaol a whole night, but to be at once taken to the
block.”
This desire was not complied with. Returning to the gaol, his rage
was terrible.
The Abbé Lambert approached and said, “Citizen Equality, will you
accept my assistance, or, at least, the offer of my condolence?”
“Who are you?”
“The Vicar-General of the Bishop of Paris. If you will not accept my
religious help, can I be of any service to you after your death? Have
you messages to send?”
“No; I can die without help, and like a good citizen.”
He went to the place of execution at three, accompanied by three
others.
Reaching the scaffold, he looked at the knife calmly; and the
executioner offering to remove his boots, he said, “You will do it
more easily afterwards.”
He was dressed very beautifully for his death, and he died without
fear. He had followed the Revolution blindly—had thrown away fortune,
name, reputation, in its cause, and it destroyed him simply because
he had belonged to royalty.
Terror was rapidly reddening all the land.
The guillotine was not quick enough, and squads of soldiers shot down
the condemned.
Such sentences as the following, were accepted as truths:—
“The time is come when the prophecy shall be fulfilled. The wealthy
shall be despoiled, and the poor shall be enriched.
“If the people want bread, let them profit by the sight of their
misery, to seize on the possessions of the wealthy.
“Do you seek a word which furnishes all you need?—die, or cause
others to die.”
The great Terror began at Lyons.
“The great day of vengeance has arrived,” cried one Cholier. “Five
hundred men amongst us deserve to share the fate of the tyrant. I
will give you the list—be it your part to strike!”
He then seized a crucifix, dashed it upon the ground, and trampled
upon it.
Here is another theory which was applauded:—
“Any man can be an executioner—it is the guillotine which really
takes life.”
This Cholier, who had trampled upon the crucifix, clung to it when
condemned to the death he was always seeking for others. The knife
was blunt, and five times it was raised before the head fell.
“Quick—quick!” the wretch cried, when it was raised for the fifth
time.
Some time after, when the Terror was rising to its height, Cholier
was looked upon as a martyr; his body was burnt, and the ashes placed
in an urn, were carried triumphantly through the streets, and placed
upon an altar of patriotism raised to him.
The altar in question was soon thrown down.
But only after the Terror ended.
With Cholier’s after-death triumph, the “moderates” began to fall.
Ten of the municipals of Lyons (the place of Cholier’s exploits) were
beheaded in one day, and a mine was exploded which destroyed the
finest parts of the city.
Lyons was almost annihilated. At a cost of half a million of money
(English), houses worth twelve millions were destroyed. Why? France
was mad. So hurriedly was this destruction effected, that hundreds of
the workmen themselves were buried in the ruins.
Life, however, was cheap.
Rags only were to be seen—a decent dress was equivalent to
condemnation. The city was dead but for the thunder of fallen houses,
the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry mowing down suspected
people, and the shrill cry of the ragged as they marked another
head fall beneath the guillotine knife. It was now looked upon as a
distinction, and reserved only for important people.
An entire generation was destroyed in Lyons alone. Great houses were
unowned—for their owners were dead. Castles, churches, factories,
work-shops, were closed, for their heads had all passed under the
guillotine.
Starvation increased, for the land lay a-dying.
The guillotine was getting old and worn-out at Lyons.
One morning, sixty-four are marched out to death. They are bound,
and ranged in a line before an open trench. Three pieces of cannon,
loaded with bullets, sweep the ranks. Not half are touched.
“Forward!” is the word given to the dragoons, who hack and shoot down
the victims. This lasts two whole hours.
Nine hundred and thirty executioners, in the shape of an entire
regiment, were to send their victims, marshalled in a row, into
eternity at the same moment. At the order “Fire!” four bullets struck
at the life of the victims, all of whom are tied to a rope stretched
from tree to tree.
Strange—when the smoke arose, only half were found dead. The rest
remained either wounded or untouched. The unscathed stared in horror;
the wounded screamed to be despatched.
The soldiers could not fire again. Some of the prisoners had freed
themselves, and were escaping. The dragoons were ordered forward to
cut them down. The victims were killed piece-meal. One man, a mayor
of his town, reached the river, but there his bleeding hand betrayed
him, and he was cast into the river.
The soldiers protested against the use to which they were put. The
massacres lasted until night-fall. Yet when the grave-diggers came
next morning, some hearts still beat. The sextons put the martyrs out
of their misery at once by blows on the head with their pickaxes.
“We are purging the land,” wrote Collet d’Herbois to the Convention.
Every day twenty-two were regularly shot. By this time, the fear of
life rendered death sweet. Girls, men, children, prayed that they
might be shot with their parents. Sometimes they permitted this, and
little boys and girls were shot, holding their father’s hands.
Women who were seen to shed tears at executions, were shot.
Mourning was prohibited under pain of death.
One lad of fourteen, says, “Quick—quick! You have killed papa! I want
to overtake him!”
One De Rochefort[2] was accompanied by a son to the
butchering-ground, whither he went with three relatives. The men
fell—the boy, aged fifteen, remained standing.
The executioner hesitated—the people murmured.
“God save the King!” cried De Rochefort.
A moment—a report—he fell, shattered to death.
A lovely girl, fourteen, is brought before the judge for refusing to
wear the national cockade.
“Why do you refuse to wear it?” asks the judge.
“Because you _do_!” replies the child.
Her beauty, rather than justice, pleading for her, a sign was made
that a wreath should be put in her hair, the emblem of liberation.
She cast it upon the ground. She died.
A man came to the Hall of Justice.
“You have slain my father, my brothers, my wife—kill me. My religion
forbids me to destroy myself. In mercy, kill me.”
In mercy—they killed him.
A woman, who had fought bravely in the earlier and fairer time of the
Revolution, was carried to the scaffold, though about to become a
mother. She did not fear death—she pleaded for the other life.
She was laughed at—hooted—and so died.
A girl of seventeen, and much resembling Charlotte Corday, was
accused of having served as an artillerist in the trenches of the
forces opposed to the national forces.
“What is your name?”
“Mary; the name of the mother of the God for whom I am about to die.”
“Your age?”
“Seventeen; the age of Charlotte Corday.”
“How!—at seventeen, fight against your country?”
“I fought to save it.”
“Citizen—we, your judges, admire your courage. What would you do with
your life if we gave it you?”
“Use it to kill you!”
She ascended the scaffold, alarmed at the crowd of people—fearless of
death. She refused the executioner’s help—cried twice, “God save the
King!”—and lay down to die.
After her death, the executioner found amongst her clothes a note
written in blood. It was from her lover, who had been shot some days
before.
The lovers were only separated by a few days. Their history touched
the people, but the people of that day did not know how to pardon.
These awful executions were at last arrested, not because the
victims were exhausted, but because the soldiers threw down their
arms and positively refused any longer to play the shameful parts of
executioners.
Napoleon Bonaparte, the tyrant-liberator of the oppressed republic,
now rose to his first distinction.
The English were in possession of Toulon. Admiral Hood was preparing
to flood France with English red-coats.
Within a week Bonaparte had compelled the English to retire, but not
before they had destroyed the arsenal and the whole of the French
navy.
On the beach, fifteen thousand refugees from various parts of France
sought to get away to the combined English and Spanish fleets.
A storm arose in the midst of this destruction. Seven thousand were
rescued from the vengeance of the Republican arms; eight thousand
perished.
These refugees were chiefly carried to Leghorn, where their
descendants still reside.
The Convention ordered that Toulon should be razed to the ground for
having submitted to the English.
This frantic order, however, was not carried out.
Napoleon was now Emperor of Toulon. Already he disobeyed orders, and
rose daily to power.
Marat had risen over the Girondists and Liberals, Danton over him;
Robespierre was to destroy Danton, but Napoleon was to set his foot
upon them all, and command, until, in his turn, in 1815, he was to
succumb.