was indulged in without control, with | on the altar of Reason. On the 11th hardly any veil from the public gaze. November the popular society of the To such a length was this carried, that Musée entered the hall of the munici Robespierre afterwards declared that pality, exclaiming, "Vive la Raison !" Chaumette deserved death for the abo- and carrying on the top of a poll the minations he had permitted on that oc- half-burnt remains of several books, casion. Thenceforward that ancient edi- among others the breviaries, and the fice was called the Temple of Reason.* Old and New Testament, "which have The same scene soon afterwards took expiated in a great fire," said their preplace in the Church of St Sulpice, where sident, "all the fooleries which they the part of the goddess of Reason was have made the human race commit." performed by Madame Momoro, wife Taking advantage of the enthusiasm of the printer, and the intimate friend which this announcement excited, Héof Hébert. She appeared to the crowd bert proposed and carried a resolution of worshippers in the attire in which for the demolition of the whole of the Venus displayed herself to Paris; but steeples of Paris, on the ground that to her credit it must be added, her they were "repugnant to the principles shame was such that she fainted on of equality." On the same day, a dethe altar. cree was passed for the destruction of all the sculpture on Notre Dame, excepting that on the two lateral portals, which were to be saved, Chaumette said, "because Dupiers had there traced his planetary system." Finally, on the 23d November, atheism in France reached its extreme point, by a decree of the municipality ordering the immediate closing of all the churches, and placing the whole priests under surveil 47. The municipality, elated by the success of their efforts to overturn the Christian religion, and the countenance they had received in their designs from the National Convention, lost no time in adopting the most decisive measures for its entire extirpation. All the relics preserved in the churches of Paris were ordered to be deposited in the commune, and the loudest applause shook the hall when the section of Quinze-lance. At the same period they gave Vingts brought the shirt of Saint Louis, long the object of esteem, to be burned * It is a most curious circumstance that exactly the same thing had been done at Constantinople, six hundred years before, by the French Crusaders, who stormed the Byzantine capital. "In the Cathedral of St Sophia," says Gibbon, "the ample veil of the sanctuary was rent asunder, for the sake of the golden fringe; and the altar, a monument of art and riches, was broken in pieces, and shared among the captors. A prostitute was seated on the throne of the Patriarch, and that daughter of Belial, as she is styled, sang and danced in the church, to ridicule the hymns and processions of the Orientals. After stripping the gems and pearls, they converted the chalices into drinking-cups, and they trampled under foot the most venerable objects of the Christian worship. Nor were the repositories of the royal dead secure from violation. In the Church of the Apostles, the tombs of the Emperors were rifled; and it is said that, after six centuries, the corpse of Justinian was found without any signs of decay or putrefaction."-GIBBON, xi. 237. Is this the History of 1201 or 1793-of the sack of Constantinople, or the orgies of the Revolution? National character seems indelible by any length of time. "Coelum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare cur runt." decisive proof of the bloody use they were to make of their power, by ordering lists of all the persons who were suspected, and all who had at any time signed anti-revolutionary petitions, to be sent to the forty-eight sections of Paris; and in some sections they refused passports to them, when desirous of leaving the city. 48. The services of religion were now universally abandoned. The pulpits were deserted throughout all the revo lutionised districts; baptism ceased; the burial service was no longer heard; the sick received no communion; the dying no consolation. A heavier anathema than that of papal power pressed upon the peopled realm of France-the anathema of Heaven, inflicted by the madness of her own inhabitants. The village bells were silent; Sunday was obliterated. Infancy entered the world without a blessing; age left it without a hope. In lieu of the services of the church, the licentious fêtes of the new system were performed by the most abandoned females; it appeared as if months of 1793, were 562, while the the Christian worship had been suc- marriages were only 1785-a proporceeded by the orgies of the Babylonian tion probably unexampled among manpriests, or the grossness of the Hindoo kind. The consequences soon became theocracy. On every tenth day a revo- apparent. Before the era of the Conlutionary leader ascended the pulpit, sulate, one-half of the whole births in and preached atheism to the bewildered Paris were illegitimate; and at this audience; Marat was universally dei- day, notwithstanding the apparent refied; and even the instrument of death formation of manners which has taken was sanctified by the name of the "Holy place since the Restoration, every third Guillotine." It might well be called child to be seen in the streets of Paris so: how many martyrs did it bring to is a bastard. light! On all the public cemeteries the inscription was placed, "Death is an Eternal Sleep." The comedian Monvel, in the church of St Roch, carried impiety to its utmost length. "God! if you exist," said he, "avenge your injured name. I bid you defiance. You remain silent; you dare not launch your thunders; who, after this, will believe in your existence?" It is by slower means, and the operation of unfailing laws, that the decrees of Providence are accomplished. A more convincing proof of divine government than the destruction of the blasphemer was about to be afforded; the annihilation of the guilty by their own hands, and as the consequence of the passions which they themselves had unchained. "Deus patiens," says St Augustin, "quia æter nus. * 49. The most sacred relations of life were at the same period placed on a new footing, suited to the extravagant ideas of the times. Marriage was declared a civil contract, binding only during the pleasure of the contracting parties. Divorce immediately became general: the corruption of manners reached a pitch unknown during the worst days of the monarchy; the vices of the marquises and countesses of the time of Louis XV. descended to the shopkeepers and artisans of Paris. So indiscriminate did concubinage become, that, by a decree of the Convention, bastards were declared entitled to an equal share of the succession with legitimate children. Mademoiselle Arnould, a celebrated comedian, expressed the public feeling when she called "Marriage the Sacrament of Adultery." The divorces in Paris, in the first three * "God is patient because eternal." 50. A decree of the Convention soon after suppressed all the public schools and colleges, even those of medicine and surgery. Their whole revenues were confiscated. Even the academies, which had become so celebrated in European history, by the illustrious men by whom they had been graced, were involved in the general proscription. The exquisite tapestry of the Gobelins was publicly burned, because the mark of the crown and arms of France was on it. All the sculpture and statuary which could be found on tombs, in churches, palaces, or chateaus, was destroyed, because it savoured of royalty and aristocracy. New schools, on a plan originally traced out by Condorcet, were directed to be formed, but no efficient steps were taken to insure their establishment; and education, for a number of years, almost entirely ceased through all France.* One establishment only, the Polytechnic School, dates from this melancholy epoch. During this fearful night, the whole force of the human mind was bent upon the mathematical sciences, which flourished from the concentration of its powers, and were soon illuminated by the most splendid light. In the general havoc, even the establishments of charity were not spared. The revenues of the hospitals and humane institutions throughout the country were confiscated by the despots whom the people had seated on the throne; their domains sold as part of the national property. Soon the terrible effects of the suppression of all permanent sources of relief to the destitute became * "Under the Reign of Terror, the col leges and schools were entirely deserted; parents were unable to think of anything but the immediate necessity of preserving life."-Deux Amis, xii. 2. apparent. Mendicity advanced with | memory of Marat, who, beyond either frightful steps; and soon the condi- Voltaire or Rousseau, became the obtion of the poor throughout France be- ject of general adoration. Then was came such as to call forth the loudest seen how much the generous but mislamentations from the few enlightened taken devotion of Charlotte Corday had philanthropists who still followed the in reality strengthened the power of the car of the Revolution. tyrants. The fruit of crime is never salutary; for it shocks the feelings, on which alone real amendment can be founded. Marat's bust was placed in the Convention, and on an altar in the Louvre, with the inscription - "Unable to corrupt, they have assassinated him." He became, literally speaking, an object of worship; great numbers of victims were sacrificed to his memory; and the monster who had incessantly urged the cutting off of two hundred and eighty thousand heads, was assimilated to the Saviour of the world. A couplet was composed by a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the section Marat, the burden of which was 51. In the midst of the general desertion of the Christian faith by the constitutional clergy, it is consolatory to have, for the honour of human nature, one instance of an opposite character to recount. Gregory, Bishop of Blois, arrived in the Convention; he was pressed to imitate the example of Gobel. He ascended the tribune; and, while the Assembly expected to hear him abjure like the rest, he said: "My attachment to the cause of liberty is well known; I have given multiplied proofs of it. If the present question relates to the revenues of my bishopric, I resign them without regret. If it is a question of religion, that is a matter beyond your jurisdiction, and you have no right to enter upon it. I hear much of fanaticism and superstition. Reflect on what the words mean, and you will see that it is something diametrically opposite to religion. As for myself, Catholic by conviction and sentiment, priest by choice, I have been named by the people to be a bishop; but it is neither from them nor you that I hold my mission. I consented to bear the mitre at a time when it was a crown of thorns they tormented me to accept it: they torment me now to extort an abdication, which they shall not tear from me. Acting on sacred principles which are dear to me, and which I defy you to ravish from me, I have endeavoured to do good in my diocese: I will remain a bishop to do so, and I invoke for my shield the liberty of worship." This courageous speech produced great astonishment in the Convention, and he was denounced at the Jacobins for having wished to "christianise" the Revolution; but Robespierre, who was in secret averse to these scandalous scenes as likely to discredit it, did not support the clamour, and he escaped being sent to the guillotine. 52. Meanwhile the Jacobins were bestowing every imaginable honour on the "O sacred heart of Jesus! O sacred heart of Marat! On the 21st September, his apotheosis took place with great pomp. His bust was soon to be seen in every village of France; and, on the 14th November, a decree of the Convention, proceeding on a report of the younger Chénier, was passed, directing his ashes to be transferred to the Pantheon, where they were accordingly deposited with great pomp not long afterwards, in the room of the remains of Mirabeau, which were thrown out. Many months had not elapsed before Chénier's brother, the celebrated poet, became the victim of Marat's principles. 53. But amidst this extraordinary mixture of republican transports and individual baseness, the great measures of the Revolution were steadily advancing, and producing effects of incalculable moment and lasting effect on the fortunes of France. Three of paramount importance took place during the course of the year 1793, and produced consequences which will be felt by the latest generation in that country. These were the immense levies, first of three hundred thousand, then of twelve hundred thousand men, which took place in the course of that year; the confiscation of two-thirds of the This landed property in the kingdom, which | of these individuals received three francs arose from the decrees of the Conven- a-day as his wages for seeking out tion against the emigrants, clergy, and victims for arrest and the scaffold; persons convicted at the Revolutionary and the annual charge for them was Tribunals; and the unbounded issue 591,000,000 fr., or nearly £24,000,000 of assignats on the security of the na- sterling. Between the military defendtional domains. These great measures, ers and the civil servants of the governwhich no government could have at- ment, almost all the active and resotempted except during the fervour of lute men in France, and the whole of a revolution, mutually, though for a the depraved and abandoned ones, were brief period, upheld each other, and in the pay of the dictators, and the perpetuated the revolutionary system whole starving energy of the country by the important interests which were fed on the spoils of its defenceless opumade to depend on its continuance. lence: a terrible system, drawing after The immense levy of soldiers drew off it the total dissolution of society; caalmost all the ardent and energetic pable of being executed only by the spirits, and not only furnished bread most audacious wickedness, but never to the multitudes whom the closing of likely, when it is attempted, of failing, all pacific employments had deprived for a time at least, of success. of subsistence, but let off in immense system produced astonishing effects for channels the inflamed and diseased a limited period, just as an individual blood of the nation; the confiscation of who, in a few years, squanders a great the land placed funds worth above fortune, outshines all those who live £700,000,000 sterling at the disposal wholly on the fruits of their industry. of the government, which they were But the inevitable period of weakness enabled to squander with boundless soon arrives; the maniac who exerts profusion in the maintenance of the his demoniac strength cannot in the revolutionary regime at home, and the end withstand the steady efforts of incontest with its enemies abroad; the telligence. The career of extravagance extraordinary issue of paper, to the is in general short; bankruptcy arrests amount ultimately of £350,000,000, alike the waste of improvidence and always enabled the treasury to liqui- the fleeting splendour which attends it. date the demands upon it, and interested every holder of property in the kingdom in the support of the national domains, the only security on which it rested. During the unparalleled and almost demoniac energy produced by the sudden operation of these powerful causes, France was unconquerable; and it was their combined operation which brought it triumphant through that violent and unprecedented crisis. 55. Cambon, the minister of finance, in August 1793, made an important and astonishing revelation of the length to which the issue of assignats had been carried under the Reign of Terror. The national expenses had exceeded 300,000,000 of francs, or above £12,000,000 a-month; the receipts of the treasury, during the disorder which prevailed, never reached a fourth part of that sum; and there was no mode of 54. Europe has had too much reason supplying the deficiency but by an into become acquainted with the military cessant issue of paper money. The power developed by France during this quantity in circulation on the 15th eventful period; but the civil force August 1793 amounted to 3,775,846,033 exerted by the dictators within their livres, or £151,000,000; the quantity own dominions, though less generally issued since the commencement of the known, was perhaps still more remark- Revolution had been no less than able. Forty-eight thousand revolution- 5,100,000,000 francs, or £204,000,000 ary committees were soon established sterling. This system continued during in the Republic, being one in each the whole Reign of Terror, and procommune, and embracing above 500,000 duced a total confusion of property of members, all the most resolute and de- every sort. All the persons employed termined of the Jacobin party. Each | by government, both in the civil and military departments, were paid in the paper currency at par; but as it rapidly fell, from the enormous quantity in circulation, to a tenth part, and soon a twentieth of its value, the pay received was merely nominal, and those in the receipt of the largest apparent incomes were in want of the common necessaries of life. Pichegru, at the head of the army of the north, with a nominal pay of four thousand francs a-month, was in the actual receipt on the Rhine, in 1795, of only two hundred francs, or £8 sterling in gold or silver a smaller sum than the pay of an English lieutenant; and Hoche, the commander of a hundred thousand men, the army of La Vendée, besought the government to send him a horse, as he was unable to purchase one, and the military requisitions had exhausted all those in the country where he commanded. If such was the condition of the superior, it may be imagined what was the situation of the inferior officers and private soldiers. While in their own country, and deprived of the resource of foreign plunder, they were literally starving; and the necessity of conquest was felt as strongly, to enable them to live on the spoils of their enemies, as to avert the sword of desolation from the frontiers of France. paid in paper, than if paid in the precious metals. It is needless to say that this forced attempt to sustain the value of the assignats proved totally nugatory; and the consequences soon became fatal to many classes of persons. Debtors of every description hastened to discharge their obligations; and the creditors, compelled to accept paper at par, which was not worth a fifth or tenth, at last not a hundredth, of its nominal value, were defrauded of nearly the whole of their property. But their outcries were speedily drowned in the shout of the far more numerous body of debtors liberated from their demands. These transports, however, were of short duration, and the labouring classes from the very first were ruined beyond redemption. Their wages, in consequence of the total destruction of credit, general decline of consumption, and universal stagnation of industry, had by no means risen in proportion to this fall in the value of the assignats, and they found themselves miserably off for the necessaries of life; while the farmers, raising the price of their provisions in proportion to the fall in the value of paper, soon elevated them beyond the reach of the labouring poor. This state of things, so opposite to what they had been led to 56. This constant and increasing de- expect as the result of a revolution, preciation of the assignats produced its excited the most vehement discontent natural and unavoidable effect in an among the working classes; they asunprecedented enhancement of the price cribed it all, as is always the case in of provisions and all the articles of hu- similar circumstances, to the efforts of man consumption. The assignats were aristocrats and forestallers, and demandnot absorbed in the purchase of the na-ed with loud cries that they should be tional domains, because the holders led out to the guillotine. were distrustful of the security of the revolutionary title, which they could alone receive; and as their issue continued at the rate of £10,000,000 sterling a-month, of course the market became gorged, and the value of these securities rapidly declined. Though this depreciation was unavoidable, the Convention endeavoured to arrest it, and enacted the punishment of six years in irons against any who should exchange any quantity of silver or gold for a greater nominal value of assignats; or should ask a larger price for any articles of merchandise, if the price was 57. It became then absolutely necessary to have recourse to a maximum: powerful as the Committee of Public Salvation was, a longer continuance of the public discontents would have endangered its existence. Corn, indeed, was not wanting; but the farmers, dreading the tumult and violence of the markets, and unwilling to part with their produce at the nominal value of the assignats, refused to bring it to the towns. To such a pitch did this evil arise in the beginning of May 1793, that the Convention was forced to issue a decree, compelling the farmers and |