Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/727

Rh now borne nine months' imprisonment in a close dungeon, was brought before the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal, a sort of court organized to take cognizance of conspiracies against the republic, condemned to the guillotine, and straightway beheaded.

Two weeks after the execution of the queen, twenty-one of the chiefs of the Girondists, who had been kept in confinement since their arrest in the Convention, were pushed beneath the knife. Hundreds of others followed. Day after day the carnival of death went on. Seats were arranged for the people, who crowded to the spectacle as to a theatre. The women busied their hands with their knitting, while their eyes feasted upon the swiftly changing scenes of the horrid drama.

Most illustrious of all the victims after the queen was Madame Roland, who was accused of being the friend of the Girondists. Woman has always acted a prominent part in the great events of French history, because the grand ideas and sentiments which have worked so powerfully upon the imaginative and impulsive temperament of the men of France, have appealed with a still more fatal attraction to her more romantic and generously enthusiastic nature.

Sweeping Changes and Reforms.—While clearing away the enemies of France and of liberty, the revolutionists were also busy making the most sweeping changes in the ancient institutions and customs of the land. They hated these as having been established by kings and aristocrats to enhance their own importance and power, and to enthrall the masses. They proposed to sweep these things all aside, and give the world a fresh start.

A new system of weights and measures, known as the metrical, was planned, and a new mode of reckoning time was introduced. The names of the months were altered, titles being given them expressive of the character of each. Each month was divided into three periods of ten days each, called decades, and each day into ten parts. The tenth day of each decade took the place of Sunday. The five odd days not provided for in the arrangement were made festival days.

Abolition of Christianity.—With these reforms effected, the