Page:History of The man with the iron mask (1).pdf/19

Rh domiciliary visits a wakened the sleeping victims of persecntion to misery and destruction; while revolutionary tribunals condemned them by scores, unpitied, and even unheard. The laws were no longer maintained; the idea of a constitution became intolerable; all power was concentrated, as among the eastern nations; the government degenerated into a Turkish Divan: it was the Committee of Public Safety that regulated every thing, that absolved or tried, that spoiled or enriched, that murdered or saved; and this committee was entirely regulated by the will of Robespierre, who governed it by the means of his creatures, St Just and Couthon.

He reserved for himself, however, the immediate superintendence of the revolutionary tribunals, and was accustomed, at night, to mark down the victims who were to perish before the setting of the morrow's sun.

The execution of four or five a-day did not satiate his vengeanee; the murder of thirty or forty was demanded, and obtained: the streets became deluged with blood; canals were necessary to convey it to the Seine; and experiments were actually made at the Bieetre with an instrument for cutting off half a score heads at a single motion!

Amidst this accumulation, however, of seemingly irresistible authority, Robespierre was on the brink of ruin. The whole of the old Girondist party was indeed subdued and silent; but many members of the Convention still remained attached to it. The party of the Mountain, by means of whom Robespierre had risen to power, found themselves not only disregarded, but ready at every instant to fall a