The visionary equality of metaphysical impostors is become a substantial
one--not constituted by abundance and freedom, but by want and
oppression. The disparities of nature are not repaired, but its whole
surface is levelled by a storm. The rich are become poor, but the poor
still remain so; and both are conducted indiscriminately to the scaffold.
The prisons of the former government were "petty to the ends" of this.
Convents, colleges, palaces, and every building which could any how be
adapted to such a purpose, have been filled with people deemed
suspicious;* and a plan of destruction seems resolved on, more certain
and more execrable than even the general massacre of September 1792.
* Now multiplied to more than four hundred thousand!--The prisons of
Paris and the environs were supposed to contain twenty-seven
thousand. The public papers stated but about seven thousand,
because they included the official returns of Paris only.
--Agents of the police are, under some pretended accusation, sent to the
different prisons; and, from lists previously furnished them, make daily
information of plots and conspiracies, which they alledge to be carrying
on by the persons confined. This charge and this evidence suffice: the
prisoners are sent to the tribunal, their names read over, and they are
conveyed by cart's-full to the republican butchery. Many whom I have
known, and been in habits of intimacy with, have perished in this manner;
and the expectation of Le Bon,* with our numbers which make us of too
much consequence to be forgotten, all contribute to depress and alarm me.
Pages:
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521