The 

 Human 

 Harvest 



Re'versed 

 selection 

 through 

 repression 

 and intol- 

 erance 



[60] 



Young virgins with fair golden tresses, 



Old silver-haired prelates and priests, 

 Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses, 



Were splendidly served at her feasts. 

 Ventrebleu ! but we pampered our ogress 



With the best that the nation could brings 

 And dainty she grew in her progress, 



And called for the head of a king ! 



Thus the slaughter went on until the man 

 on horseback came, and the mob, "alive 

 but most reluctant," was itself forced into 

 the graves it had dug for others. 



And since that day the " best that the na- 

 tion could bring," those who fell in the 

 Reign of Terror, have been without de- 

 scendants, — the men less manly than the 

 sons of the Girondins would have been, the 

 women less beautiful than the daughters of 

 Lamballe. The political changes which 

 arose may have been for the better ; the 

 change in the blood was all for the worse. 



Other influences which destroyed the best 

 were social repression, religious intolerance 

 and the intolerance of irreligion and un- 

 science. It was the atheist mob of Paris 

 which destroyed Lavoisier, with the sneer 



