Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 07.djvu/191

Rh to them when any doubtful objects were found on them. The mob threw themselves like wild beasts or lunatics on their victims. Many saved themselves by their presence of mind, others were rescued by the firmness of the Municipal Guard, who in those days patrolled everywhere; some received wounds or were maimed, while six men were unmercifully murdered outright. Nothing is so horrible as the anger of a mob when it rages for blood and strangles its defenceless prey. Then there rolled through the streets a dark flood of human beings, in which, here and there, workmen in their shirt-sleeves seemed like the white caps of a raging sea, and all were howling and roaring—all merciless, heathenish, devilish. I heard in the Rue Saint-Denis the well-known old cry, "A la lanterne!" and from voices trembling with rage I learned that they were hanging a poisoner. Some said that he was a Carlist, and that a brevet du lis had been found in his pocket; others declared he was a priest, and others that he was capable of anything. In the Rue Vaugirard, where two men were killed because certain white powders were found on them, I saw one of the wretches, while he was still in the death-rattle, and at the time old women plucked the wooden shoes from their feet and beat him on the head till he was dead. He was naked and beaten and bruised, so that