defies the Universe and defies God!

Paris this September 1793!--or shall we call it Vendemiaire, Year I.
of the Republic?--call it what we will! Paris! a city of bloodshed, of
humanity in its lowest, most degraded aspect. France herself a
gigantic self-devouring monster, her fairest cities destroyed, Lyons
razed to the ground, Toulon, Marseilles, masses of blackened ruins,
her bravest sons turned to lustful brutes or to abject cowards seeking
safety at the cost of any humiliation.

That is thy reward, oh mighty, holy Revolution! apotheosis of
equality and fraternity! grand rival of decadent Christianity.

Five weeks now since Marat, the bloodthirsty Friend of the People,
succumbed beneath the sheath-knife of a virgin patriot, a month since
his murderess walked proudly, even enthusiastically, to the guillotine!
There has been no reaction--only a great sigh! ... Not of content or
satisfied lust, but a sigh such as the man-eating tiger might heave
after his first taste of long-coveted blood.

A sigh for more!

A king on the scaffold; a queen degraded and abased, awaiting death,
which lingers on the threshold of her infamous prison; eight hundred
scions of ancient houses that have made the history of France; brave
generals, Custine, Blanchelande, Houchard, Beauharnais; worthy
patriots, noble-hearted women, misguided enthusiasts, all by the
score and by the hundred, up the few wooden steps which lead to the
guillotine.