ds;
and vast numbers were guillotined, without a trial!*

* Six young women, (the _Mesdemoiselles la Meterie,_) in particular,
sisters, and all under four-and-twenty, were ordered to the
Guillotine together: the youngest died instantly of fear, the rest
were executed successively.--A child eleven years old, who had
previously told the executioner, with affecting simplicity, that he
hoped he would not hurt him much, received three strokes of the
Guillotine before his head was severed from his body.

--Two thousand died, in less than two months, of a pestilence, occasioned
by this carnage: the air became infected, and the waters of the Loire
empoisoned, by dead bodies; and those whom tyranny yet spared, perished
by the elements which nature intended for their support.*

* Vast sums were exacted from the Nantais for purifying the air, and
taking precautions against epidemical disorders.

But I will not dwell on horrors, which, if not already known to all
Europe, I should be unequal to describe: suffice it to say, that whatever
could disgrace or afflict mankind, whatever could add disgust to
detestation, and render cruelty, if possible, less odious than the
circumstances by which it was accompanied, has been exhibited in this
unfortunate city.--Both the accused and their witnesses were at first
timid through apprehension, but by degrees the monstrous mysteries of the
government were laid open, and it appeared, beyond denial or palliation,
that these enormities were either devised, assisted, or connived at, by
Deputies of the Convention, celebrated for their ardent republicanism and
revolutionary zeal.--The danger of confiding unlimited power to such men
as composed the majority of the Assembly, was now displayed in a manner
that penetrated the dullest imagination, and the coldest heart; and it
was found, that, armed with decrees, aided by revolutionary committees,
revolutionary troops, and revolutionary vehicles of destruction,*
missionaries selected by choice from the whole representation, had, in
the city of Nantes alone, and under the mask of enthusiastic patriotism,
sacrificed thirty thousand people!

* A company was formed of all the ruffians that could be collected
together. They were styled the Company of Marat, and were specially
empowered to arrest whomsoever they chose, and to enter houses by
night or day--in fine, to proscribe and pillage at th