st sanguinary laws were enacted--and the most vigilant system of
police maintained. Spies and informers were employed--and every murmur,
and every expression unfavourable to the ruling powers was followed with
the sentence of death and its immediate execution.

"Men," says Scott, "read Livy for the sake of discovering what degree of
private crime might be committed under the mask of public virtue. The
deed of the younger Brutus, served any man as an apology to betray to
ruin and to death, a friend or a patron, whose patriotism might not be
of the pitch which suited the time. Under the example of the elder
Brutus, the nearest ties of blood were repeatedly made to give way
before the ferocity of party zeal--a zeal too often assumed for the most
infamous and selfish purposes. As some fanatics of yore studied the old
testament for the purpose of finding examples of bad actions to
vindicate those which themselves were tempted to commit, so the
republicans of France, we mean the desperate and outrageous bigots of
the revolution, read history to justify, by classical instances, their
public and private crimes. Informers, those scourges of a state, were
encouraged to a degree scarce known in ancient Rome in the time of the
emperors, though Tacitus has hurled his thunders against them, as the
poison and pest of his time. The duty of lodging such informations was
unblushingly urged as indispensable. The safety of the republic being
the supreme charge of every citizen, he was on no account to hesitate in
_denouncing_, as it was termed, any one whomsoever, or howsoever
connected with him,--the friend of his counsels, or the wife of his
bosom,--providing he had reason to suspect the devoted individual of the
crime of _incivism_,--a crime the more mysteriously dreadful, as no one
knew exactly its nature."

In this place we shall give an account of some of the scenes to which
France was subject during this awful period. In order to render the
triumph complete, the leaders of the Jacobins determined upon a general
massacre of all the friends of the unfortunate Louis and the
constitution in the kingdom. For this purpose, suspected persons of all
ranks were collected in the prisons and jails, and on the 2d of
September, 1792, the work of death commenced.

_Massacre of Prisoners._

The number of individuals accumulated in the various prisons of Paris
had increased by the arrests and domiciliary visits subsequent to the
10th of Augus