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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