trouble. This furnishes an example of the evils of a hesitating policy. But, whatever the influence of the old school, it is passing. The logic of events will teach us far better than argument on which side the wiser policy lies. We shall advance and not retreat. The tendency toward expansion is world-wide. The twentieth century will see Great Britain, the United States, Germany, and Russia directing world-developments of vast moment to mankind. The age of steam is giving place to the age of electricity. The world must expect mighty changes and rapid developments. The struggle for existence intensifies. The empty lands are filling; incompetent governments everywhere are crumbling under the pressure of dominant races. Hermit nations are no longer possible. All peoples must enter the competition and prove what strength there is in them, and take the position to which this entitles them.

In this great redistribution of power the

Ο

It

Asiatic peoples are sure to play a great, if subordinate, part. The vast populations of the Orient will increase and overflow into Central Asia, and the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and possibly into Africa and South America. The north temperate zone, the zone, as we have said, of power, must remain in the hands of the white race. is the duty of the United States in the Far East to support Great Britain rather than to attempt to shirk responsibility by abandoning any part of the Philippines, or any other opportunity, to help in securing a peaceful and satisfactory solution of the Far Eastern Question. Anglo-Saxon dominance in worldpolitics, with all the blessings it would bring, requires a forward policy on the part of America, as the first step toward an alliance which shall insure a great future for Asia and the world, along the lines of civil and religious liberty and industrial development.

FRANCIS BINGHAM WHITE, B. D.

F THE history of the French Revolution, with its manifold and multiplex causes, its rapid changes, its conflicting factors, its astonishing results, to get a really clear idea is one of the most difficult things possible. Of that single dark episode of this dark history which goes by the name of the "Reign of Terror," even a Thomas Carlyle craves indulgence: "an unlucky editor," he says humbly, "may do his utmost; and after all require allowance.»* Not that there have not been many and admirable works dealing with this, perhaps the most terrible of all terrible scenes in the drama of Humanity. "History tells us many things," again exclaims Carlyle, "but for the last thousand years and more, what things has she told us of a sort like this?"+ Yet of all writers perhaps he who asks this question has of this era given us the most graphic picture. But he who would know the history of the French Revolution would do well to master its facts before reading Carlyle his history, vividly as he portrays the epoch, presupposes a large

*The French Revolution, Vol. III, Book I, chap. 1. † Ibid.

knowledge of the time. It would be well for the novice to peruse a simpler narrative of the events as they succeeded one another before taking up Carlyle's lurid history, as full of comment as description. For this purpose we might recommend the translation of Professor H. von Sybel's « History of Europe during the French Revolution," published in four volumes by Murray, of London; or Mignet's-an excellent short history, an English translation of which is to be found in "Bohn's Library; or Thiers's "History of the French Revolution," translated by Frederick Shoberl, 4 vols., Philadelphia; or Taine's "French Revolution," translated by John Durand, 3 vols., New York: Henry Holt & Co.; or Professor Morse Stephens's "History of the French Revolution," 2 vols. (a third to follow), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Mr. Justin H. McCarthy's "French Revolution,» 2 vols., New York: Harper & Bros., only comes down to the close of the Constituent Assembly-September 30, 1791. these the best are generally thought to be Carlyle, von Sybel, Mignet, Morse

Of

Stephens, and Taine. It may also be

added that the present United States Ambassador to Germany, Mr. Andrew D. White, has appended to the American edition of Mr. Wm. O'Connor Morris's "The French Revolution and the First Empire a bibliography of the Revolution. Another bibliography may be found in the fourth volume of Thomas Carlyle's "Miscellanies."

Of the Reign of Terror, however, that is, the period from the 31st of May, 1792, to the 27th of July, 1794.- twenty-five months lacking four days, there has lately been published a work which puts it within the power of every English reader to learn for himself from authentic contemporary documents, translated from the French, and written by actual spectators many of whom only escaped slaughter by the most hair-breadth of chances, something of the sufferings and terrors endured by the victims of the fury of the Jacobins and of the cruel and malignant despotism of Marat and Robespierre. This work is called "The Reign of Terror: a Collection of Authentic Narratives of the Horrors Committed by the Revolutionary Government of France under Marat and Robespierre, written by eye-witnesses of the Scenes, translated from the French, interspersed with Biographical Notices of Prominent Characters and Curious Anecdotes, illustrative of a period without its parallel in History."* We purpose giving here a few extracts from this work, with just such annotations as will make them intelligible.

In reading these accounts, it must not, of course, be forgotten that they are the out-pourings of the hearts of men and women who suffered, suffered acutely, during this agonizing period of the "Reign of Terror" and the << September Massacres. » "It is unfortunate," says Carlyle, "though very natural, that the history of this period has so generally been written in hysterics. Exaggeration abounds, execration, wailing; and, on the whole, darkness." But perhaps to no writer other than himself can we point for a more lucid or more impartial account of it. As for a judgment on it, even he hardly dares to pronounce that. He points out that Paris was in panic; that the country was declared to be in danger; that there was in reality no recognized authority; that

* London: Leonard Smithers, 1898 (2 vols.); also, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

† French Revolution, Vol. III, Book I, chap. 1.

innumerable bodies of men were being enraged by almost every passion known to humanity-fear, anger, hatred, revenge, covetousness, greed, recklessness, the pride of conquest, the despair of defeat; that France was beset with invading enemies; that Paris felt she had to go forth to meet these foes; that Paris also felt that she harbored within her own bosom allies of these foes — the royalists, namely; that if she went forth to meet the invader, these allies would be left behind to wreak, perhaps, such vengeance as they could on those left defenceless in Paris. This was the official explanation and apology given for the wholesale slaughter of the suspected prisoners in those terrible days of September 2-6, in which, according to Carlyle's estimate, after a careful examination of all the figures, one thousand and eighty-nine persons suffered.‡ Let us first make a bare outline of the events of this period. They are as follows:§

1794.

1793.

January 21 - Louis XVI guillotined.

February - The War spreads to England and Holland; Grocer's shops in Paris plundered.

March - Mutual quarrel of parties, once the King was struck down; Girondins or Limited "legal" Republicans versus Mountain* or Unlimited (Jacobins).

March 7-War with Spain.

March 10- Danton contrives the "Revolutionary Tribunal.»

March 12-Committee of Surveillance established in Paris.

March 11-15 — Insurrection in La Vendée. April- Famine, or scarcity of all kinds.

May and June — First meeting of the Convention at the Tuileries (May 10th); The quarrel between Girondists and Jacobins becomes acute; Girondists defeated and arrested.

July - The Departments — which are chiefly Girondist - revolt and try to bring on civil war. July 13-Charlotte Corday murders Marat; Great Republican vengeances in consequence.

August-Jacobins entirely victorious; The war with the rest of Europe waging; Suppression of all Academies and literary societies.

September - The "Revolutionary Army » (Anarchic Police force of the Jacobins) instituted.

September 5-On the motion of Barère «Terror was decreed to be the order of the day.

October 16- Queen Marie Antoinette executed.

October 31-Twenty-two Girondists executed.

November 6- Execution of Philippe duc d'Orléans (Egalité).

November 8- Execution of Madame Ro

land.

November 10 - The Catholic worship repressed by that of Reason; Goddess of Reason (first of them, at Paris) sails into the Convention. +

November, December, and January - Plunder of churches; Wholesale drownings at Nantes; "Death poured out in great floods;" Organization of the Revolutionary Government (December 4).

*So called because they occupied elevated seats (the upper benches of the extreme left ") in the Convention. †The Goddesses of Reason were the actresses Maillard, Julie Candeille, and Sophie Momoro.

The Jacobins conspire against Robespierre, who is guillotined with his consorts, July 28, which unexpectedly ended the Reign of Terror.

Now let us revert to the eye-witnesses in question, and see with their eyes what is going on in terrorized Paris.

M. Jourginac de St. Méard, in his "My Agony of Thirty-eight Hours," thus describes the shifts to which the prisoners were put in their despair:

"Our most important occupation was to reflect and determine upon the best position for us to assume, that we might receive our death with the least pain, upon entering the place where the massacres were perpetrated. From time to time we sent some of our companions to the window of the small turret, to inform us of the positions taken by the unhappy beings who were sacrificed, in order that we might decide, from their report, how we should act upon the occasion, to endure the least suffering. They reported to us that those who stretched out their hands suffered much longer, as the blows of the sabres were deadened before they reached their heads; that there even were some whose hands and arms fell before their bodies, and that those who placed them behind their backs appeared to suffer much less than the others. Alas! it was upon such horrible details as these that we were driven to deliberate. We calculated actually the advantages of the last-mentioned position, and reciprocally recommended each other to take it, when our turn to be massacred should arrive!» -"Reign of Terror», i, 21.

.

The grave and kind-hearted Abbé Sicard, a noted teacher of the deaf and dumb, thus describes the massacres of the prisoners confined in the prison of the Abbaye:

"But the court of the Abbaye streamed with blood, and was like the reeking ground on which several cattle have just been butchered.

"It was necessary to wash it: the labor was extreme. In order that they might not have the trouble a second time, some one proposed to have some straw fetched and to make with it a sort of bed, upon which should be put the clothes of all the unfortunate victims who should be taken to that place to be slaughtered. The advice was approved of. Another complained that the aristocrats died too quickly; and that the first only had the pleasure of striking them. It was therefore determined that, for the future, they should only be struck with the back of the sword, and that they should afterwards be made to run between two rows of assassins, as was formerly practiced towards the soldiers who were condemned to run the gauntlet. It was likewise decided, that there should be erected around the place benches for the ladies,

and benches for the gentlemen (for there were then ladies and gentlemen). A sentinel was placed at this post, in order that all might take place in a regular manner. I saw with my own eyes, and heard all that I have just been stating. I saw the ladies in the neighborhood of the Abbaye assemble around the bed which was prepared for the victims, to take their places there, as they would have done at a theatre or any public entertainment."—Ibid., i, 79-80.

M. Joseph Paris de l'Épinard, a prisoner at the Abbaye, describes how he was fed:

"My food was always execrable, and very insufficient for my wants. All the subsistence which I received during the day was a decayed herring, or a piece of wretchedly cooked meat, scarcely two ounces in weight, which more resembled human flesh than the flesh of an ox. The idea will never be removed from the minds of those who were confined in this abominable prison, that human flesh was eaten in it."— Ibid., i, 139.

The same prisoner thus describes the treatment of women in the same prison:

"A woman condemned to death was confined while Bayard remained; he concealed the child, in order to screen her, at least for a time, from the greedy impatience of the executioners; but he was barely gone out of the apartment when, upon the information of the nurse, the unhappy victim was added to the hecatomb.

"A girl of seventeen years of age, under condemnation, declared herself pregnant, and was conducted, after her sentence had been read, to the hospital. She received the customary medical visit; and on the report of Enguchard and of Naury, that she was only seeking to gain time, she was guillotined the next day.

"A young Polish princess, a perfect Venus in loveliness and beauty, who was evidently pregnant, indulged her just resentment, and reproached the gaolers with their assassinations and their crimes. These monsters, without a particle of indulgence for her despair, or her situation, denounced her to the public accuser, and she was led to the scaffold.

"On the 7th and 8th Thermidor, eight women, blooming in youth, beauty, and ingenuousness, were likewise condemned. They declared themselves in a state of pregnancy, and were taken to the hospital. The next morning they were submitted to a humiliating examination, and, in the afternoon, seven of them lost their heads upon the scaffold."— Ibid., i, 151.

Here is an account of the execution of the celebrated Madame Roland:

"The blood of the 22nd was still smoking, when the wife of Roland arrived. She main

tained the most perfect calmness, though well aware of the fate which awaited her. Without being in the flower of age, she was still full of charms, extremely tall, and of an elegant figure, with a most intelligent countenance; but her sufferings and long confinement had left traces of melancholy upon her features, and had cooled down her natural vivacity.

"The day on which she was condemned, she had dressed herself in white, and with unusual care. Her long black tresses fell down in folds as far as her waist. She would have softened the most ferocious heart, but these monsters had none. Besides, she made no effort to do so; she had merely chosen this dress as a symbol of the purity of her soul. After her condemnation, she crossed back into the wardroom with the quick step of a satisfied mind, and made us a sign that she was condemned to death. Being joined in the same sentence with a man whose courage was not equal to hers she succeeded in inspiring him with firmness, by such charming and unaffected gaiety, that she frequently forced us, melancholy as we were, to smile.

"Upon arriving at the public square, where she was to undergo her sentence, she saluted the Statue of Liberty, and pronounced these memorable words, Oh Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!>»—Ibid., i, 174-175.

The ruthlessness and recklessness of the September massacres are seen in the following account of the slaughter of Mademoiselle Renaud :

"The trial of the girl Renaud, who accompanied him [l'Admiral] to the scaffold, was no less horrible and atrocious. This young girl, who seemed to have a degree of disorder in her ideas, had not the smallest intention of killing Robespierre; she had no offensive weapon whatsoever on her person. Her opinions, it is true, were false; but what relation is there between opinions and the scaffold; yet she was arrested and plunged into prison. It would seem as if they endeavored to invent new tortures, to prove to the tyrant how sacred were his days. Everyone belonging to this unfortunate young girl was doomed to perish, her brothers, who had shed their blood upon the frontiers, were brought to Paris, loaded with chains, expecting to lose the last drop upon the scaffold, and, if they escaped, it was only because their assassins, being too eager for the destruction of the family, had not the patience to wait for their arrival. Sixty persons, whom Renaud had never seen, who were as innocent as herself, and the greater part of whom had been in confinement for six months, accompanied her to the scaffold, covered with red shirts as accomplices. The house, with the entire street in which she lived, was directed to be razed to the ground.” — Ibid., i, 177.

Another prisoner, an eye-witness, thus corroborates the treatment of women:—

"The furious rage of these monsters was seconded from without. Never had a body of cannibals more zealous or more numerous providers. New victims were incessantly arriving. It seemed as if their blind fury was particularly directed against the weakest and most amiable. The loveliest, the youngest, and the most interesting females, were dragged in crowds into this receptacle of misery, whence they were led, by dozens, to inundate the scaffold. The depraved wretches, not content with treating the sex with the grossest insult, continued to vow towards it the most implacable hatred. Young females, far advanced in pregnancy; others who had just become mothers, who were still in that state of weakness and paleness attendant upon their situation; others, whose milk had stopped, either through fear, or because their children were torn from their breasts, were daily and nightly precipitated into this abyss. They were dragged from prison to prison, their hands loaded with irons. Some of them had collars round their necks. Some of them fainted on their entrance and were carried in the arms of the turnkeys, who laughed at their terrors; others wept, and some were in a state of stupefaction, which deprived them of the use of their senses. Within the last month, particularly, the work of destruction went on with dreadful activity. The bolts were at work both night and day. Sixty persons arrived in the evening on their way to the scaffold, and were replaced on the following day by a hundred others, who met with the same fate."-Ibid., i, 178.

The same writer gives a graphic but terrible picture of the bloodshed:

"They began to heap fifteen persons together in the fatal cart. They soon put thirty, and at length went as far as eighty-four; and the day that the death of Robespierre rescued the human race from their fury, they had everything prepared for sending a hundred and fifty persons together to the place of execution. An immense aqueduct had already been dug in the Place St. Antoine, for the purpose of carrying away the blood, and, I tremble as I mention the dreadful fact the blood of the unfortunate victims was spilled each day in buckets, and four men were occupied at the moment of execution in emptying them into this aqueduct.—Ibid., i, 179.

He thus describes the wholesale nature of the slaughter:

"Entire generations have literally been swept away in one day. The venerable Malesherbes, upwards of eighty years, was dragged to the scaffold, at the head of his whole family. He perished together with his sister, his daughter, and his son-in-law, and the daughter and son

in-law of his daughter. Madame de Montmorin was accompanied by her son. Four of the Briennes suffered together. In other batches all that was lovely was united in a body. Fourteen young girls of Verdun, who appeared like virgins dressed out for a public fête, were led out together to the scaffold. They disappeared on a sudden, and were mowed down in the spring of their youth."—Ibid., i, 180.

The same writer is authority for the following instance of almost incredible cruelty:

"Twenty women from Poictou, the greater part of whom were peasant girls, were also butchered together. I still behold these unhappy victims, lying in the court-yard of the Conciergerie, overwhelmed with the fatigue of a long journey, and sleeping on the pavement. They were all executed a few days after their arrival. At the moment of her mounting the scaffold, they tore, from the breast of one of these unfortunate females, the child she was suckling, and which was, at that very moment, imbibing a nourishment of which the executioner was going to destroy the source.”—Ibid., i, 181.

Of the wholesale drownings at Nantes (and, by the way, it may be remarked that Mr. Swinburne's "Les Noyades" is not a purely fanciful incident) an eyewitness writes:

"Night was the time chosen for these dreadful executions; the elements seemed for a moment to conspire together to proclaim them in broad day. The victims carried away by the stream were hurried towards the sea; a powerful tide, strengthened by a westerly wind, drove back into the Loire, and up as far as Nantes, the dead bodies which had before been cast into the ocean. The city was obliged to bury them, and the operation is said to have cost the government ten thousand francs.

"Every mode of death was put in use at once; shooting during the day, drowning during the night, and that terrible instrument which should never strike but by order of the tribunals, the guillotine, was arbitrarily employed to accelerate human destruction. »— Ibid., ii, 246.

Of the frightful lengths to which what may be called this thanatomania went in this period, Mr. Morse Stephens gives us an idea in the following sentences:

"The favorite design was the guillotine. Little guillotines were worn as brooches, as earrings, and as clasps, and the women of the time simply followed the fashion without realizing what it meant. Indeed, the worship of the guillotine was one of the most curious features of the epoch. Children had toy guillotines given them; models were made to cut off