Page:A general history for colleges and high schools (Myers, 1890).djvu/729

Rh followed in many places throughout France. Churches were everywhere converted into temples of the new worship. The Sabbath having been abolished, the services of the temple were held only upon every tenth day. On that day the mayor or some popular leader mounted the altar and harangued the people, dwelling upon the news of the moment, the triumphs of the armies of the republic, the glorious achievements of the Revolution, and the privilege of living in an era when one was oppressed neither by kings on earth or by a King in heaven.

Fall of Hébert and Danton (March and April, 1794).—Not quite one year of the Reign of Terror had passed before the revolutionists, having destroyed or driven into obscurity their common enemy, the Girondists, turned upon one another with the ferocity of beasts whose appetites has been whetted by the taste of blood.

During the progress of events the Jacobins had become divided into three factions, headed respectively by Danton, Robespierre, and Hébert. Danton, though he had been a bold and audacious leader, was now adopting a more conservative tone, and was condemning the extravagances and cruelties of the Committee of Public Safety, of which he had ceased to be a member.

Hébert was one of the worst demagogues of the Commune, the chief and instigator of the Parisian rabble. He and his followers, the sans-culottes of the capital, would overturn everything and refound society upon communism and atheism.

Robespierre occupied a position midway between these two, condemning alike the moderatism of Danton and the atheistic communism of Hébert. To make his own power supreme, he resolved to crush both.

Hébert and his party were the first to fall, Danton and his adherents working with Robespierre to bring about their ruin, for the Moderates and Anarchists were naturally at bitter enmity.

Danton and his friends were the next to follow. Little more