--Would to Heaven
I had nothing more alarming to communicate than my own situation! I may
indeed suffer by accident; but thousands of wretched victims are at this
moment marked for sacrifice, and are massacred with an execrable
imitation of rule and order: a ferocious and cruel multitude, headed by
chosen assassins, are attacking the prisons, forcing the houses of the
noblesse and priests, and, after a horrid mockery of judicial
condemnation, execute them on the spot. The tocsin is rung, alarm guns
are fired, the streets resound with fearful shrieks, and an undefinable
sensation of terror seizes on one's heart. I feel that I have committed
an imprudence in venturing to Paris; but the barriers are now shut, and I
must abide the event. I know not to what these proscriptions tend, or if
all who are not their advocates are to be their victims; but an
ungovernable rage animates the people: many of them have papers in their
hands that seem to direct them to their objects, to whom they hurry in
crouds with an eager and savage fury.--I have just been obliged to quit
my pen. A cart had stopped near my lodgings, and my ears were assailed
by the groans of anguish, and the shouts of frantic exultation.
Uncertain whether to descend or remain, I, after a moment's deliberation,
concluded it would be better to have shown myself than to have appeared
to avoid it, in case the people should enter the house, and therefore
went down with the best show of courage I could assume.
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