CHAPTER II
WIDELY DIVERGENT AIMS

This was Armand S. Just's first visit to Paris since that
memorable day when first he decided to sever his connection from
the Republican party, of which he and his beautiful sister
Marguerite had at one time been amongst the most noble, most
enthusiastic followers. Already a year and a half ago the
excesses of the party had horrified him, and that was long before
they had degenerated into the sickening orgies which were
culminating to-day in wholesale massacres and bloody hecatombs of
innocent victims.

With the death of Mirabeau the moderate Republicans, whose sole
and entirely pure aim had been to free the people of France from
the autocratic tyranny of the Bourbons, saw the power go from
their clean hands to the grimy ones of lustful demagogues, who
knew no law save their own passions of bitter hatred against all
classes that were not as self-seeking, as ferocious as themselves.

It was no longer a question of a fight for political and religious
liberty only, but one of class against class, man against man, and
let the weaker look to himself. The weaker had proved himself to
be, firstly, the man of property and substance, then the
law-abiding citizen, lastly the man of action who had obtained for
the people that very same liberty of thought and of belief which
soon became so terribly misused.

Armand St. Just, one of the apostles of liberty, fraternity, and