With the death of the King, I bring this lecture to a close. It would
be interesting to speculate on what might have been averted, had
Mirabeau lived. But probably nothing could have saved the monarchy
except civil war, to which Louis XVI. was averse.

Nor can I dwell on the second part of the Revolution, when the
government was in the hands of those fiends and fanatics who turned
France into one vast slaughter-house of butchery and blood. I have only
to say, that the same unseen hand which humiliated the nobles,
impoverished the clergy, and destroyed the King, also visited with
retribution those monsters who had a leading hand in the work of
destruction. Marat, the infidel journalist, was stabbed by Charlotte
Corday. Danton, the minister of justice and orator of the revolutionary
clubs, was executed on the scaffold he had erected for so many innocent
men. Robespierre, the sentimental murderer and arch-conspirator, also
expiated his crimes on the scaffold; as did Saint-Just, Lebas, Couthon,
Henriot, and other legalized assassins. As the Girondists sacrificed the
royal family, so did the Jacobins sacrifice the Girondists; and the
Convention, filled with consternation, again sacrificed the Jacobins.

After the work of destruction was consummated, and there was nothing
more to destroy, and starvation was imminent at Paris, and general
detestation began to prevail, in view of the atrocities committed in
the name of liberty, the crushing fact became apparent that the nations
of Europe were arming to put down the Revolution and restore the
monarchy. In a generous paroxysm of patriotism, the whole nation armed
to resist the invaders and defend the ideas of the Revolution. The
Convention also perceived, too late, that anything was better than
anarchy and license. It put down the clubs, restored religious worship,