Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/87

 Rh blacken their victims' character with foul insinuations which they did not even pretend to prove. A board of assassins was established composed of the greatest reactionists in the chamber called the "Commission of Pardons" whose function it was to confirm the sentences of the courts martial. These murders, be it remembered, were not done in the heat of combat or even immediately after the victory, but were carried on continuously for more than six months, and sporadically for a year longer. And the same people who applauded or, at least, acquiesced in these horrors without protest, pretend to stand aghast at the depravity of a Vaillant or a Caserio!