" In the side
chapels, which are "shut off by high tapestries, prostitutes with
shrill voices" pursue their avocation.[22] - To descend to this low
level so barefacedly, to fraternise with barrier sots, and wenches, to
endure their embraces and hiccoughs, is bad enough, even for docile
deputies. More than one half of them loathed it beforehand and
remained at home; after this they do not feel disposed to attend the
Convention.[23] - But the " Mountain sends for them, and an officer
brings them back;" it is necessary that they should co-operate through
their presence and felicitations in the profanations and apostasies
which follow;[24] it is necessary that they should approve of and
decree that which they hold in horror, not alone folly and nonsense,
but crime, the murder of innocent people, and that of their friends.
- All this is done. "Unanimously, and with the loudest applause,"
the Left, united with the Right, sends Danton to the scaffold, its
natural chieftain, the great promoter and leader of the
Revolution.[25] "Unanimously, and with the loudest applause," the
Right, united with the Left, votes the worse decrees of the
Revolutionary government.
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