in which Nantes is situated, received terrible punishment for daring to rebel against the Revolution. An army was ordered in January, 1794, to march up and down the district and arrest suspects, and burn all the villages on their route. For two or three months these "infernal columns," moved up and down the district leaving a trail of blood and ashes to mark their path. At Nantes the ingenuity of the deputy, in whose hands lay the lives and the property of the people of the city, was taxed to the utmost to devise means of ridding the world of those who had been guilty of the terrible crime of op posing the Revolution. The guillotine worked fast, but it was unable to make any appreciable difference in the number of those who crowded the prisons of the city. It was necessary to resort to new methods—those who had revolted against the Revolution, or who were suspected of having done so, were taken outside of the city and shot in batches. It is estimated that eighteen hundred perished in this way. The accidental drowning of ninety priests on November 16 who had been confined in an old hulk on the Loire, through the overcrowding of the prisons, suggested to Carrier, to whom belongs the infamous reputation of having been responsible for the despotism at Nantes, another way of striking terror into those who dared to oppose the course of the Revolution. In the next few weeks it is estimated that at least seventeen hundred and seventy-seven persons were drowned in the Loire. Most of them were drowned in

the hulks of old vessels, which were sunk after they were filled with these unfortunate wretches; but, as if for the sake of variety, Carrier had some of them bound hand and foot and thrown into the river.

Committee of
Public Safety.

These deputies on mission were the agents of the Great Committee of Public Safety, a committee of the Convention which was absolute master of France during the Reign of Terror. The revolutionary committees of Paris, the Committee of General Security, the deputies on mission were all but so many means which the Committee of Public Safety employed to compel France to do its will and acquiesce unhesitatingly in the course of the Revolution. This committee recalled Carrier because of his atrocities. But it did not disapprove of his objects, nor of his methods in a general way. It was not the character of his methods but their details to which they objected. It was not that he had killed hundreds but that he had killed thousands, and these in an unnecessarily brutal way. It was one great object of Robespierre when he became a member of the Great Committee to make it absolute master of France. The deputies on mission were nominally deputies of the Convention, but really as we have seen, agents of the Great Committee. The Committee of General Security was the agent through which they kept Paris in awe and was one of the means through which they maintained the Terror throughout France. During the period of the

Terror it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that the lives and property of every man in France lay absolutely at the mercy of the Great Committee, and the means by which it wielded this despotism was terror. France submitted to it because the great majority of Frenchmen realized that only a government which wielded the entire resources of the country could cope with the enemies which surrounded her on every side.* So much it has seemed necessary to say that the influence of the French Revolution in American politics may be more clearly understood.

QUESTIONS.

1. What did the States-General represent?

2. When were they convoked and for what purpose?

3. Give some details that illustrate the oppression of the peasantry.

4. State and describe the three classes into which the French people were divided in 1789.

5. Describe the struggle that took place in the StatesGeneral and state its results.

6. Contrast the action of the States-General with that of the Federal Convention.

7. Mention some characteristics of the constitution adopted in 1789.

1791.

8. In what did the French Revolution of 1789 consist?
9. Why is it called a revolution?

10.

Explain the various causes that led to the Revolution of

11. Why is it called a revolution?

12. Why did Austria and Prussia enter into an alliance against France ?

*This theory is ably advocated by H. Morse Stephens, to whose volumes on the French Revolution I am greatly indebted.

13. What was the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick and to what result did it lead?

14. What body was summoned to rule France when the King was deposed?

15. How do you account for its conduct in offering to assist any people in Europe that wished to recover their liberties? 16. In what did it result, and why?

17. How did Robespierre purpose to make the wealthier classes in Paris acquiesce in the course of the Revolution?

18. Explain the phrase "Terror was decreed to be the order of the day."

19. What was the Revolutionary Tribunal and how was its activity increased in September 22, and October 29?

20. What caused the men to be thrown into prison who were brought before this tribunal?

21. Describe the relation between the Revolutionary Committees and the Committee of General Security, and the Committee of Public Safety.

22. Who were the deputies on mission?

23. What power did they have during the period of the terror and how did they use it?

24. Why did Frenchmen submit to the despotism of the Committee of Public Safety?

CHAPTER XI.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN AMERICAN POLITICS.

You

Maclay on

remember how keen was the sympathy of good Senator Maclay with France. France is struggling to be free. *** God grant that she may be successful. And you remember the issue which seemed to him at stake in the strug- the French gle. "Royalty, nobility, and the vile pageantry by which a few of the human race lorded it over their fellow mortals seems likely to be demolished with their kindred Bastile."

Revolution.

With such a conception of the issue, it is easy to see how men of different temperaments in this country would regard it. Men of Hamiltonian temper, in whom the love of stability and order was the pre

dominant passion, who regarded anarchy Hamilton. as the most dangerous enemy of society

and who wished to have a strong central government to prevent it, would be sure to see in the French Revolution an illustration of the natural tendency of democracies. Hamilton said to Edmund Randolph in the fall of 1793: "Sir, if all the people in America were now assembled and were to call on me to say whether I am a friend to the French Revolution, I would declare that I hold it in abhorrence." As Lodge puts it: "He