570 



TERROR, REIGN OF. 



restoring order into the finances were overlooked, 

 since he did not prevent the most shameless dissi- 

 pation of the public money by the courtiers. 



TERROR, REIGN OF. During the French 

 revolution, Marat and Robespierre, in the begin- 

 ning of March, 1793, introduced the system of 

 terror, so called, under the pretext, that the condi- 

 tion of France left no other means to save her. 

 To understand this phenomenon in the history of 

 man, requires an accurate knowledge and a com- 

 prehensive view of the state of France, at that 

 time convulsed by civil war, fighting single-handed 

 against the greater part of Europe, and filled with 

 a population which the clergy had done almost 

 nothing to instruct, and the court and nobility 

 every thing to corrupt. History affords many 

 instances of blood-thirsty individuals ; but here 

 we find a large portion of a nation urging the 

 slaughter of persons of all sexes, ages, and condi- 

 tions, while their mouths were full of high-sound- 

 ing phrases of liberty, equality, virtue, and justice, 

 perverting a thousand innocent acts to crimes, and 

 even inventing new crimes, e. g. negotiantism, in 

 Bordeaux, to suit the occasion. The reign of ter- 

 ror shows a more general frenzy than any other 

 period of history. One of the main causes of this 

 gigantic madness must be sought for in the disor- 

 ganization of political society in all its branches, 

 which began with Louis XIV., and frightfully 

 increased during the reigns of his successors. The 

 ascribing of the mischief to the writings of the 

 philosophers, so called, shows an ignorance of the 

 nature of man and of society. Such madness could 

 result only from deep-seated disease and depravity, 

 to which many stimulants were added. The revol- 

 utionary tribunal was the first great instrument of 

 the terrorists. This was established March 11, 

 1793, but did not receive its name until the 8th of 

 Brumaire (October, 1793), when the Mountain 

 party in the convention triumphed over the Giron- 

 dists. The object of the revolutionary tribunal 

 was to punish all those who should oppose the 

 progress of the revolution, and incur the suspicion 

 of adhering to the royal family. It may easily be 

 imagined what a field such a tribunal would afford 

 to malignity, hatred, and the spirit of persecution, 

 as it was bound by no rules, sentenced only to 

 death, never investigated the points of the accusa- 

 tion, and, at last, hardly the names of the accused. 

 After the fall of the Girondists in 1794, and the 

 accession of Robespierre and his accomplices to 

 power, the trial of individuals ceased. Fouquier 

 Tinville and his comrades daily handed in lists of 

 persons charged with treason. These were brought 

 in crowds before the tribunal, the accusation against 

 them read, and sentence of death immediately pro- 

 nounced, without even examination being had, to 

 ascertain whether the subjects of the accusation 

 were actually the persons before the court ; and, 

 in fact, the confounding of persons of the same 

 name often brought individuals to the guillotine, 

 who had never been accused. Similar revolutionary 

 tribunals were established in the large towns in the 

 provinces, and the same tragedy was acted in 

 Nantes, Lyons, Arras, Strasburg, and many other 

 places. As this mode of exterminating the pre- 

 tended enemies of the republic was too slow to 

 satisfy the party in power, they shot and drowned 

 the accused by hundreds. The intrigues of the 

 royalists must be admitted to have contributed to 

 these excesses ; and the object of Robespierre was 

 *o give energy to the government, and secure the 



country from invasion.* Many of his associates, 

 however, were actuated by the love of plunder. 

 The system of terror at length destroyed itself. 

 A part of the terrorists became victims to the 

 very system which they had established, and the 

 overthrow of the rest soon followed. AVith the 

 revolution of Thermidor 9 (July 27, 1794), or 

 with the overthrow of Robespierre, ton-oil m 

 ceased to be the professed system of government ; 

 but its consequences remained. Prudhomnic, a 

 republican, not unfriendly to the revolution, and 

 who wrote during the period of excitement, has 

 left six volumes of details of this deplorable 

 period. -Two of the six volumes contain an alpha- 

 betical list of all the persons put to death by the 

 revolutionary tribunal, with their professions, do- 

 micils, the dates of their condemnations, the place 

 and day of their execution, &c. \Vu find among 

 the 18,613 victims 



Noblemen 1,278 



Noblewomen 750 



Females of tlie class of mechanic* and peasants 1,4C7 



Nuns 350 



Priests 1,135 



Men not noble, of various classes 13,633 



Total .18,613 



Women who died in consequence of premature delivery 3,400 



Women pregnant and in childbed 348 



Women killed in the Vendee 15,000 



Children " " 22,000 



Whole number who perished in the Vendee 900,000 



Victims under the proconsulate of Carrier, at Nantes . . 32,000 

 Including 



Children shot 500 



" drowned 1,500 



Women shot 264 



" drowned 600 



Priests shot 300 



" drowned 460 



Noblemen drowned 1,400 



Mechanics drowned 5,300 



Victims in Lyons 31,000 



These numbers do not comprehend the victims of 

 the massacres at Versailles, Carmes, 1'Abbaye, 

 Avignon, the fusillades at Toulon, and Marseilles, 

 after the sieges of those places, and the massacre 

 of the entire population of the little town of Be- 

 doin, in Provence. More than 50,000 revolutionary 

 committees were established in France, to enforce 

 the law against the suspected (that of Sept. 21, 

 1793). Cambon, member of the convention, calcu- 

 lates that they cost the country 591,000,000 francs 

 (in assignats) a year: each member received three 

 francs a day; and there were 150,000 who had the 

 right to designate for death. Paris alone had sixty 

 committees. It will be seen from the above, that 

 the nobles, priests, nuns, and monks, form but a 

 small part of those who died by the guillotine. 

 The Girondist Riouffe, a prisoner with madame 

 Roland and others at the Conciergerie, gives the 

 most appalling details in his Memoires d'un Detenu. 

 Among other things, he says, Dejb un aqueduc 

 immense qui devoit voiturer du sang avoit etc creu.se 

 a la place Saint- Antoine. Disons-le, quelque hor- 

 rible qu'il soil de le dire, tons les jours le sang humain 

 se puisoitpar seaux, et quatre hommes etoient occupes, 

 au moment de V execution a les vider dans cet aqueduc. 

 More horrid details may be found in the preface of 

 Chateaubriand's Etudes ou Discours Historiques. 

 A list of all the persons who perished by the guil- 

 lotine in that period, is given in the above-men- 

 tioned work of Prudhomme. 



Ixmvet, in his memoirs, expresses liis conviction that !><>kh 

 Robespierre and Marat were in the pay of the ailie* ! 



