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A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, Part II., 1793 - Described in a Series of Letters from an English Lady: with General - and Incidental Remarks on the French Character and Manners by An English Lady
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expediency of an insurrection, or the necessity of a more frequent
employment of the guillotine, the debate terminates by overflowing of
sensibility from all the members who have engaged in it!

At the assassinations in one of the prisons, when all the other miserable
victims had perished, the mob discovered one Jonneau, a member of the
Assembly, who had been confined for kicking another member named
Grangeneuve.* As the massacrers probably had no orders on the subject,
he was brought forth, from amidst heaps of murdered companions, and a
messenger dispatched to the Assembly, (which during these scenes met as
usual,) to enquire if they acknowledged Jonneau as a member. A decree
was passed in the affirmative, and Jonneau brought by the assassins, with
the decree fastened on his breast, in triumph to his colleagues, who, we
are told, at this instance of respect for themselves, shed tears of
tenderness and admiration at the conduct of monsters, the sight of whom
should seem revolting to human nature.

* When the massacres began, the wife and friends of Jonneau
petitioned Grangeneuve on their knees to consent to his enlargement;
but Grangeneuve was implacable, and Jonneau continued in prison till
released by the means above mentioned. It is observable, that at
this dreadful moment the utmost strictness was observed, and every
form literally enforced in granting the discharge of a prisoner. A
suspension of all laws, human and divine, was allowed to the
assassins, while those only that secured them their victims were
rigidly adhered to.

Perhaps the real sang froid I have before noticed, and these pretensions
to sensibility, are a natural consequence one or the other. It is the
history of the beast's confession--we have only to be particularly
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