transform Paris into a
slaughter-house. One shudders in thinking what a few criminals can
accomplish in the midst of an immense population. "The people, the
real people--that composed of laborious and honest workmen, ardent and
patriotic at heart, and of young _bourgeois_ with generous aspirations
and indomitable courage--never united for an instant with the
scoundrels recruited by Maillard from every kennel in the capital.
While the hired assassins of the Committee of Surveillance established
in the prisons what Vergniaud called a butcher's shop for human flesh,
the true populace was assembled on the Champ-de-Mars, and before the
enlistment booths; it was offering its purest blood for the country; it
would have blushed to shed that of helpless unfortunates."[1] In 1871,
the murder of hostages and {361} the burning of monuments was no more
approved by the population than the massacres in the prisons were in
1792. The crimes were committed at both epochs by a mere handful of
individuals. The great majority of the people were guilty merely of
apathy and fear.

The hideous tableau surpasses the most lugubrious conceptions of
Dante's sombre imagination. Paris is a hell. From August 29, it is
like a torpid Oriental town. The whole city is in custody, like a
criminal whose limbs are held while he is being searched and put in
irons. Every house is inspected by the agents of the Commune. A knock
at the door makes the inmates tremble. The denunciation of an enemy, a
servant, a neighbor, is a death sentence. People scarcely dare to
breathe. Neither running water nor solid earth is free. The parapets
of quays, the arches of bridges, the bathing and washing boats are
bristling with sentries. Everything is surrounded. There is no
refuge. Three thousand suspected persons are taken out of houses, and
crowded into prisons. The hunt begins anew the following day. The
programme of massacres is arranged. The Communal Council of
Surveillance has minutely regulated everything. The price of the
actual work is settled. The personnel of cut-throats is at its post.
Danton has furnished the executioners; Manuel, the victims. All is
ready. The bloody drama can begin.

On September 2, Danton said to the Assembly: "The tocsin about to sound
is not an alarm signal; it {362} is a charge upon the enemies of the
country. To vanquish them, gentlemen, all that is needed is boldness,
and again boldness, and always boldness." Tw