and danced around them,
singing parodies on the Halleluiah, and dancing the Carmagnole.

"Shortly after a still more indecent exhibition took place before the
assembly.... Hebert and Chaumette, and their associates, appeared at the
bar and declared 'that God did not exist, and that the worship of Reason
was to be substituted in his stead.' A veiled female, arrayed in blue
drapery, was brought into the Assembly; and Chaumette, taking her by the
hand, 'Mortals,' said he, 'cease to tremble before the powerless
thunders of a God whom your fears have created. Henceforth acknowledge
no divinity but Reason. I offer you its noblest and purest image; if you
must have idols, sacrifice only to this.' When, letting fall the veil,
he exclaimed, 'Fall before the august Senate of Freedom, O Veil of
Reason!' At the same time, the goddess appeared personified by a
celebrated beauty, the wife of Momoro, a printer, known in more than one
character to most of the Convention. The goddess after being embraced by
the president, was mounted on a magnificent car, and conducted, amid an
immense crowd, to the cathedral of Notre Dame, to take the place of the
Deity. There she was elevated on a high altar, and received the
adoration of all present, while the young women, her attendants, whose
alluring looks already sufficiently indicated their profession, retired
into the chapels around the choir, where every species of licentiousness
and obscenity was indulged in without control, with hardly any veil from
the public gaze. To such a length was this carried, that Robespierre
afterward declared that Chaumette deserved death for the abominations he
had permitted on that occasion. Thenceforward that ancient edifice was
called the _Temple of Reason_."

Such horrible events are sickening to relate; but as I started out to
describe the condition of this "sea" when it became as the blood of a
dead man, I must be faithful to the task. God was now dethroned; the
services of religion abandoned; every tenth day set apart for the
hellish orgies of atheism and Reason; Marat was deified; the instrument
of death sanctified by the name "the holy Guillotine"; on the public
cemeteries was inscribed, "Death is an Eternal Sleep"; marriage was a
civil contract, binding only during the pleasure of the contracting
parties. Mademoiselle Arnout, a celebrated comedian, expressed the
public feeling when she said, "_Marriage the sacrament of adultery_."
What an awful harvest