Chiefs of each faction accused all others as traitors,
and executions by the guillotine rose to fifty a day. "We must have a
hundred!" cried Robespierre, the lunatic leader of the moment.

The excesses in Paris roused civil war, and through all France men slew
one another in the name of liberty. In Brittany the peasants even rose
in support of royalty, and refused allegiance to the republic. Never has
the most hideous brutality of man been more openly displayed than in
those days of vengeance. The intellectual classes of Europe everywhere
shrank back, terrified at the spectre they had evoked.

The Reign of Terror ended in 1794 with the downfall and execution of its
leader, Robespierre.[15] The civil war was trampled out in blood. And
with Titanic energy the French Republic defended itself against its
foreign foes.

All Europe had joined in a coalition against France--all the kings, that
is. Their subjects still doubted, still hoped, still looked anxiously to
France to see if freedom were in truth a possibility. Then from the
ranks of the liberated French arose great generals, aristocrats no
longer, but men of the people, fitted to lead the new-born armies of the
people. Greatest of these and grimmest of them was Napoleon Bonaparte.
He taught the timorous legislative authorities of Paris how to reassert
their dominion over "King Mob," who had ruled them and the country for
four hideous years. He checked a new uprising by a discharge of
well-stationed cannon, aimed to kill.

Order being thus established at home, the French began to pour over the
border in attack upon those kings who had threatened them. In many
places they were still received as the apostles of liberty. Holland,
Switzerland, the Rhine lands, became allies or dependents of France.
Kings were helpless against them. To the spirit of Republicanism, to the
impassioned courage of Frenchmen, was added the genius of Bonaparte. He
conquered Italy. He plundered her and sent home priceless treasures to
delight his countrymen and fill their exhausted treasury. He became the
man of the hour.[16]

Far beyond France spread the influence of her example. In Eastern
Europe, Poland was roused against the despoilers who had already seized
a portion of her territory. She began a rebellion under Kosciuszko, who,
like Lafayette, had imbibed the love of freedom in America. But Poland
was crushed by the overpowering forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.
Her remaining prov