, 300, Report, by Saint-Just, February 26,
1794.): "In 1788, Louis XVI. Caused eight thousand persons of both
sexes and of every age to be sacrificed in the rue Meslay and on the
Pont-Neuf. These scenes were repeated by the court on the Champs de
Mars; the court had hangings in the prisons, and the bodies of the
drowned found in the Seine were its victims. These were four hundred
thousand prisoners in confinement; fifteen thousand smugglers were
hung in a year, and three thousand men were broken on the wheel; there
were more prisoners in Paris than there are now . . . Look at
Europe. There are four millions of people shut up in Europe whose
shrieks are never heard." - Ibid., XXIV., 132. (Speech by
Robespierre, May 10, 1793). "Up to this time the art of governing has
simply consisted in the art of stripping and subduing the masses for
the benefit of the few, and legislation, the mode of reducing these
outrages to a system."
[27] Buchez et Roux, XXXII., 353. (Report by Robespierre to the
Convention, May 7, 1794.) "Nature tells us that man is born for
freedom while the experience of man for centuries shows him a slave.
His rights are written in his heart and history records his
humiliation.
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