tember. Here the mockery of justice was complete, for in the condemnation of the accufed, the conviction of the jury, without the examination of witneffes, or even the confeffion of the prifoner, was declared fufficient to establish guilt.

In fuch a state of fociety, when fortune, honour, and life, depended upon the caprice of fanguinary individuals, it is not furprising, that private affaffinations were frequently perpetrated with impunity; and, from the torpor and infenfibility that prevailed, were regarded as trivial acts. Suicide likewife became the refource of the unfortunate, especially of those, who had renounced every idea of Religion, the fuperintendance of a Providence, and of a fu ture existence. Thus those who escaped from the tribunal of the ruling faction, perished by their own hands. Valazé stabbed himself;-Echelle and Condorcet preferred poifon ;-L'Huillier killed himself in prifon,-Rebecqui drowned himself they were both agents in the atrocities of Avignon, and the fecond of September. Hidon, and the academician, Champfort, fell by their own hands--and fuch was the end of Roland, who was one of the prin

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principal actors in the Revolution of the tenth of August.

The

The public acts of the representatives of the people record, that at this time, the month of November 1793, the greatest hoftility to the minifters of the church prevailed to the fervice of the churchto all celebration of devotion-to any profeffion of Chriftianity--or even reverence of the name of the Supreme Being. churches were plundered, the name of God was blafphemed, the clergy were declared to be capable of every crime, and made refponfible for every tumult. --- And the will of those perfons was ordered to be particularly refpected, who renounced all worship, except of the Republican Vir

tues.

. On the eleventh of November, the feftival of Reafon and Truth was celebrated in the Cathedral of Paris. A woman of infamous character was appointed there to receive the homage, which was denied to the Deity .

See Robifon and Barruel, and the Sun Paper, for a description of this impious ceremony.

The barbarities perpetrated at Avignon, and at Nantz, by the Revolutionary Committees, and the deftructive

vengeance inflicted upon the inhabitants, and city of Lyons, are too flagitious, and too repugnant to every sentiment of juftice and humanity, to be detailed.

The adopted plans of civic education exclude every idea of the Chriftian Religion, and of a moral Governor of the world. Obedience to those laws, which were every day changed with the fortune, the capricious temper, and the fhifting politics of new legiflators, was the only tie that bound children to their duty. Inftead of the Gospel, they were taught the Rights of Man; and their only catechifm, was the book of the Conftitution.

The brave but unfortunate heroes of

h For proofs of the unparalleled cruelties exercised. against the Lyonnois, read their petition, delivered December 29, 1793, by a deputation of the miferable furvivors of the cruelties exercifed, and horrors perpetrated in that city. It is expreffed in the language of the most abject humility, and dictated by agonizing despair, Ann. Reg. p. 275.

i

Brittanny and La Vendée, ftyled themfelves in their public Manifeftoes, the Loyal and Chriftian armies-and they bore, as their standard, the Sign of the Cross. To take away all pretence for reproach, they proposed to their enemies, the restitution of their priests, and their religion, and the exemption of their own perfons from requifition."No," replied their oppreffors, "fubmiffion, or death." This answer was the fignal of deftruction. The cause in which Charette, Stofflet, Bonchamp', Dalbé, Talmont, La Roche, Jaquelon, and many other chiefs died, gives them an eternal claim to the esteem of every fovereign, and to the veneration of all nations, among whom religion and honour are facred. The humanity of these royalists af forded a striking contrast to the fanguinary

Life of Charette.

"What has more contributed to exercise the fanaticism of the country people towards their priests and their worship, than the cruelties conftantly ordained by the anarchists against the refractory priests ?" Brissot to his Conftituents, p. 59.

Bonchamp, when mortally wounded, marked his laft moments by an act of generofity; he gave liberty to 5000 prifoners detained at St. Florent. Life of Charette, p. 33.

fpirit of their enemies. It fhowed that Religion is attentive to the rights of humanity, and that impiety is the parent of malice and revenge. Before the atrocious cruelties, exercised by the Jacobins after their defeat at Machecoul, drove the Vendeans to dreadful retaliation, they only caufed the hair of their prifoners to be cut off, and then fet them at liberty, under a promise that they should not bear arms again during the war; whilft the Convention decreed, that thofe who were taken in arms fhould fuffer death. The Convention, unable to reduce these brave men by the fword, refolved to employ fire. On the fourth of August 1793, the decree was paffed, which it is impoffible to read without horror. It enacted, that the caftles, the villages, and the woods, poffeffed by the rebels, fhould be burnt, and that the corn fhould be carried into the interior of the Republic. Each column carried before it the flaming torch-an immenfe

General Danican, who ferved against the royalifts, declared, that they had taken more than 30,000 prisoners, whom they fent back to their friends, and that they committed no cruelty till the example was fet them. Report of Carrier, Feb. 22, 1794. New Ann. Reg. P. 318,