ts who grovels chained up in the dregs of the human heart, not
only cruelty with its bared fangs,[31108] but also the slimier desires,
unite in fury against women whose noble or infamous repute makes them
conspicuous; against Madame de Lamballe, the Queen's friend; against
Madame Desrues, widow of the famous poisoner; against the flower-girl
of the Palais-Royal, who, two years before, had mutilated her lover, a
French guardsman, in a fit of jealousy. Ferocity here is associated with
lewdness to add debasement to torture, while life is violated through
outrages on modesty. In Madame de Lamballe, killed too quickly,
the libidinous butchers could outrage only a corpse, but for the
widow,[31109] and especially the flower-girl, they revive, like so many
Neros, the fire-circle of the Iroquois.[31110]--From the Iroquois to
the cannibal, the gulf is small, and some of them jump across it. At the
Abbaye, an old soldier named Damiens, buries his saber in the side of
the adjutant-general la Leu, thrusts his hand into the opening, tears
out the heart "and puts it to his mouth as if to eat it"; "the blood,"
says an eye-witness, "trickled from his mouth and formed a sort of
mustache for him."[31111] At La Force, Madame de Lamballe is carved up.
What Charlot, the wig-maker, who carried her head did, I to it, should
not be described. I merely state that another wretch, in the Rue
Saint-Antoine, bore off her heart and "ate it."[31112]

They kill and they drink, and drink and kill again. Weariness comes and
stupor begins. One of them, a wheelwright's apprentice, has dispatched
sixteen for his share; another "has labored so hard at this merchandise
as to leave the blade of his saber sticking in it"; "I was more tired,"
says a Federate, "with two hours pulling limbs to pieces, right
and left, than any mason who for two days has been plastering a
wall."[31113] The first excitement is gone, and now they strike
automatically.[31114] Some of them fall asleep stretched out on benches.
Others, huddled together, sleep off the fumes of their wine, removed
on one side. The exhalation from the carnage is so strong that the
president of the civil committee faints in his chair,[31115] the fumes
of the tavern blending with those from the charnel-house. A heavy,
dull state of torpor gradually overcomes their clouded brains, the last
glimmerings of reason dying out one by one, like the smoky lights on
the already cold breasts of the corpses lying around t