VIRILE SENTIMENT 121 



reckoning will be with us, and " all our piety and wit 

 and knowledge will not cancel by half a second " the 

 casting of the die, nor all our tears, nor lamentations, 

 nor unspeakable anguish of our womenkind and our 

 children will avert by a single drop the streams of 

 blood that will wash the streets of our great cities. 

 It is not well to forget Nantes of the 14th of December, 

 1793. The Grirondins came to regenerate a stricken 

 France. They were men of talent, of courage, of 

 constitutional principles, but the great impotent herd 

 of the Sansculottes guillotined them by the verdict 

 of a " Patriot Jury " of " terminer les dcbats " for their 

 services to their country. Are we sure that we are 

 not breeding a race of Sansculottes who will demand 

 license for themselves and terror and destruction for 

 every good citizen ? The beauty, courage, nobleness, 

 and unspeakable pathos of Jeanne-Marie Philipon as 

 she appeared before the blood-besodden crowd of the 

 lower French Democracy did not save her, nor will it, 

 under like circumstances, save the best and highest 

 of our women from similar bloody and blindly venge- 

 ful deeds, when once our sentiment has called into 

 being a multitude that is helpless to live by its own 

 efforts and meets all resistance to its demands for the 

 confiscation of the property of worthy citizens by 

 bloody and ruthless executions. It does not matter 

 whether the adversity which excites these deeds is 

 due to the corruptions of a Royal Court, to the 

 impotence of a brutal multitude, or is the product of 

 an excitable and morbid sentiment. Adversity, 

 cupidity, and hunger are not altered in their nature 



