The blade of the guillotine rose and fell automatically. Thousands fled
from the city, upon which heaven itself seemed to rain fire and plagues.
The armies of foreign kings were upon the soil of France, and were fast
advancing, and the wild rumors of their coming roused the people to
panic, and frenzied resolutions of resistance and retribution.
Thousands, whose only crime was a suspected want of sympathy, were
crowded into the prisons of Paris. Hoary age, the bounding boy, the
tender virgin, the loving wife, the holy priest, the sainted nun, the
titled lady, filed along with the depraved of both sexes in endless
procession through those massive gates, never more to see the sky and
the green earth again. For the mob had resolved to extirpate its enemies
in the city before marching against foreign invaders. It went from
prison to prison, bursting in the doors, and slaughtering without
distinction of age, sex, or condition. Madame Roland was nearly frantic
over these scenes. Her divinity had turned to Moloch in her very
presence. Her husband called for troops to stop the horrible massacre,
but none were furnished, and it went on until men were too tired to
slay. These acts were doubtless incited by the Jacobin leaders, though
they cloaked with secrecy their complicity in these great crimes. The
Jacobins became all-powerful. The Girondists became the party of the
past, and from this time their history is a record of a party in name,
but in such act of dissolution as to make its efforts spasmodic,
clique-like, and personal; sometimes grand, sometimes cruel, and often
cowardly.
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