to madness by the fancied opposition of aristocrats; the other a trembling, cowering minority, suffering insult, and fear, and robbery, and often a cruel death.

And now priests and nobles and king and queen are all gone, and yet the people are more distressed than ever before. Amid these scenes of violence, confusion, and misrule, confidence has ceased, commerce has furled the sail, trade has closed the door, manufactures ceased their din, and agriculture forsaken the plough.

There is no money, no credit, no confidence, no employment, no bread. Famine, and pestilence, and grief, and rage, and despair brood over the land. Again the people cry to their representatives, "Why do you not give us the promised prosperity and plenty? We have nothing to eat, nothing to wear; our business and trades are at an end. The nations around us are gathering to devour us, and what is the cause of all these woes?"

"It is the Girondists," is the reply; "it is this party among the people's representatives. They are traitors; they have been bribed; they have joined with foreign aristocrats and kings.

They interrupt all our measures, and they are the cause of all your sufferings.".

And now the people turn their rage upon the most intelligent and well-meaning portion of their representatives, who have been striving to stem the worst excesses of those who yield entirely to the dictation of the mob. After a period of storms and threats and violence, at length a majority is gained against them, and a decree is passed condemning a large portion of the National Legislature as traitors, while their leaders are borne forth by the exulting mob to a bloody death. Still the distress of the people is unrelieved, and again they clamour for the cause. "It is the party opposed to us," say the Jacobins, with Robespierre at their head; "they are the traitors; they will not adopt the measures which will save the people from these ills."

"Cut them down!" cries the populace; and again another portion of the people's representatives are led forth to death.

And now Robespierre, the leader of the lowest mob of all, is supreme dictator, and all power is lodged with this coldest-blooded ruffian that ever doomed his fellow-beings to a

violent death. This was the Reign of Terror, when the mob had gained complete mastery, and this man, its advocate and organ, adminis tered its awful energies. Look, then, for a moment, at the picture.

But the horrors of this period are so incredible, the atrocities so monstrous, that the tale will be regarded with distrust, without some previous indication of the causes which led to such results.

Let it be remembered, then, that this whole revolutionary movement was, in fact, a war of the common people upon the classes above them. Let it be remembered, too, that the French people, by the press, and by emissaries all over Europe, had invoked the lower classes of all nations to make common cause with them. "War to the palace, and peace to the cottage," was their watchword. Every throne began to shake, and every person of rank, talents, and wealth felt his own safety involved in the contest. It was thus that the revolutionary leaders felt that they were contending for their lives, against the whole wealth, aristocracy, and monarchical power of Europe.

In France itself, individual ambition, hate,

envy, or vengeance added fearful power to this war of contending classes. Not only every leader, but every individual, found in the opposing party some rival to displace, or some private grudge to revenge, while ten thousand aspirants for office demanded sacrifices, in order to secure vacated places. At last the struggle became so imbittered and desperate, that each man looked out only for himself. Friend gave up friend to save his own life, or to secure political advancement, till confidence between man and man perished, and society became a mass of warring elements, excited by every dreadful passion.

Few men are deliberately cruel from the mere love of cruelty. Thousands, under the influence of fear, revenge, ambition, or hate, become selfish, reckless, and cruel. When, too, in conflicts where men feel that by the hands of opponents they have lost property, home, honour, and country; when they have seen their dearest friends slaughtered or starved, then, when the hour of retaliation arrives, pity and sympathy are dead, and every baleful passion rages. Thus almost every man in the conflict had suffered: if a democrat, from

those above him; if an aristocrat, from those below him.

Meantime, religion, that powerful principle in humanizing and restraining bad passions, had well-nigh taken her flight. The war upon the clergy at length turned to a war upon the religion they represented, till atheism became the prevailing principle of the nation.

By a public act, the leaders of the people declared their determination "to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the monarchs of the earth." For this end, the apostate clergy, put in the places of those exiled, were induced to come before the bar of the National Legislature and publicly abjure Christianity, and declare that "no other national religion was now required but liberty, equality, and morality."

On this occasion, crowds of drunken artisans appeared before the bar of the house, trampling under foot the cross, the sacramental vases, and other emblems of religious faith. A vile woman, dressed as the Goddess of Reason, was publicly embraced by the presiding officer of the National Legislature, and conducted by him to a magnificent car, and folB