continued the
slaughter. The phrensy of the intoxicated mob increased each day, and
hordes came pouring out from all the foul dens of pollution greedy for
carnage. The fevered thirst for blood was inextinguishable. No tongue
can now tell the number of the victims. The mangled bodies were
hurried to the catacombs, and thrown into an indiscriminate heap of
corruption. By many it is estimated that more than ten thousand fell
during these massacres. The tidings of these outrages spread through
all the provinces of France, and stimulated to similar atrocities the
mob in every city. At Orleans the houses of merchants were sacked, the
merchants and others of wealth or high standing massacred, while some
who had offered resistance were burned at slow fires.

In one town, in the vicinity of the Prussian army, some Loyalist
gentlemen, sanguine in view of the success of their friends, got up an
entertainment in honor of their victories. At this entertainment their
daughters danced. The young ladies were all arrested, fourteen in
number, and taken in a cart to the guillotine. These young and
beautiful girls, all between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, and
from the most refined and opulent families, were beheaded. The group
of youth and innocence stood clustered at the foot of the scaffold,
while, one by one, their companions ascended, were bound to the plank,
the ax fell, and their heads dropped into the basket. It seems that
there must have been some supernatural power of support to have
sustained children under so awful an ordeal. There were no faintings,
no loud lamentations, no shrieks of despair. With the serenity of
martyrs they met their fate, each one emulous of showing to her
companions how much like a heroine she could die.

These scenes were enacted at the instigation of the Jacobins. Danton
and Marat urged on these merciless measures of lawless violence. "We
must," said they, "strike _terror_ into the hearts of our foes. It is
our only safety." They sent agents into the most degraded quarters of
the city to rouse and direct the mob. They voted abundant supplies to
the wretched assassins who had broken into the prisons, and involved
youth and age, and innocence and guilt, in indiscriminate carnage. The
murderers, reeking in intoxication and besmeared with blood, came in
crowds to the door of the municipality to claim their reward. "Do you
think," said a brawny, gigantic wretch, with tucked-up sleeves, in the
garb o