Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the Circus at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792.

The year which witnessed the unhappy fate of the brave PlatÆans was made remarkable by the Corcyrean sedition also: on which, as on the plague of Athens, the pen of Thucydides has conferred a lasting celebrity.

Corcyra, an island situated on the western coast of Greece, by sedulous attention to commerce, had risen, a little before the Peloponnesian war, to the possession of a navy capable of rivalling in strength that of any Grecian state, except Athens. It was a colony of Corinth; but, in consequence of some disputes which arose out of the affairs of Epidamnus, a Corcyrean colony, war broke out between Corcyra and the mother country, the Corcyreans concluded a defensive alliance with the Athenians, and the democratical interest was of course established in power. A naval battle ensued, in which the Corinthians had the advantage, and took upwards of a thousand prisoners. It rarely happened in any of the smaller Grecian states, that either the democratic or the oligarchical party obtained an uncontested and permanent ascendancy; and the Corinthians were not inclined to resign without a struggle that respect and influence which the manners and religion of Greece taught to be due from the colony to the mother country. Of the prisoners above mentioned, eight hundred, who were slaves, were sold by the victors; the rest, to the number of two hundred and fifty, were citizens, most of them men of consequence in Corcyra, who probably looked with no friendly eye on the Athenian alliance, and at all events were ready to break it off, and revert to the connexion of Corinth, as the price of their liberty. They were accordingly suffered to return home. The tumults to which their subsequent attempts to restore the oligarchy gave rise are celebrated in history under the name of the Corcyrean sedition. A more heinous scene of treachery and murder has seldom been exhibited even in civil warfare; or a more deplorable state of morals described than that which is said by Thucydides in the following passage to have prevailed, not only in Corcyra, but throughout Greece.

“The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus, and released afterwards by the Corinthians at the ransom, as was voiced, of eight hundred talents, for which they had given security to their hosts,[36] but in fact, because they had persuaded the Corinthians that they would put Corcyra into their power. These persons going round from man to man, solicited the city to revolt from the Athenians; and two galleys being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors from both those states, the Corcyreans, upon audience of them both, decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates, on articles agreed on: but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been. There was one Pithias, voluntary host of the Athenians, and that had been principal magistrate of the people. Him these men called into judgment, and laid to his charge a practice to bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men, saying they had cut certain stakes[37] in the ground belonging to the temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinous, upon every one of which there lay a penalty of a stater.[38] And being sentenced to pay the fine, they took sanctuary in the temples, to the end, the sum being great, they might pay it by portions, as they should be taxed. But Pithias (for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed. These five being by the law shut out of hope, and understanding that Pithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired with the rest, and armed with daggers, suddenly brake into the senate house, and slew both Pithias and others, as well private men as senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of Pithias his faction escaped into the Athenian galley that lay yet in the harbour.

“When they had done this, and called the Corcyreans to an assembly, they told them, that what they had done was for the best, and that they should not be now in bondage to the Athenians. And for the future they advised them to be in quiet, and to receive neither party with more than one galley at once; and to take them for enemies if they were more: and when they had spoken forced them to decree it accordingly. They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens, both to show that it was fit for them to do what they had done, and also to dissuade such Corcyreans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing anything to their prejudice, lest there should be a counter–revolution.

“When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyreans whom they had there prevailed with, and sent them to custody in Ægina. In the mean time, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with ambassadors from LacedÆmon, that party that had the rule assailed the commons, and overcame them in fight; and night coming on, the commons fled into the citadel, and the higher parts of the city, where they rallied themselves and encamped, and made themselves masters of the haven called the Hillaic haven. But the others seized on the market–place (where also the most of them dwelt) and on the haven on the side toward the continent.

“The next day they skirmished a little with shot,[39] and both parts sent abroad into the villages to solicit the slaves, with promise of liberty, to take their parts; and the greatest part of the slaves took part with the commons, and the other side had an aid of 800 men from the continent.

“The next day but one they fought again, and the people had the victory, having the odds both in strength of places, and in number of men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the houses, and enduring the tumult, even beyond the condition of their sex. The few began to fly about twilight, and fearing lest the people should attack, and at the first onset gain possession of the arsenal, and put them to the sword, to stop their passage, set fire to the houses in the market–place, and those adjoining them, sparing neither their own property nor others. Much goods of merchants were hereby burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed. Then ceasing from battle, forasmuch as both parties were at rest, they set watch for the night. And the Corinthian galley stole away, because the people had gotten the victory, and most of the auxiliaries got over privily to the continent.

“The next day Nicostratus the son of Diotrephes, an Athenian commander, came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms from Naupactus, and both negotiated a reconciliation, and induced them (to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors of the sedition (who presently fled) and to let the rest alone, with articles both between themselves and with the Athenians, to esteem friends and enemies the same as the Athenians did. When he had done this, he would have been gone, but the people persuaded him before he went to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they would man with Corcyreans, and send with him. To this he agreed, and they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of their enemies. But these fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary in the temple of Castor and Pollux: but Nicostratus endeavoured to raise them, and spake to them, to put them into courage: but when he could not prevail, the people (arming themselves on pretence that their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil intention) took away their arms out of their houses, and would also have killed some of them, such as they chanced on, if Nicostratus had not hindered them. Others also, when they saw this, took sanctuary in the temple of Juno, and they were in all above four hundred. But the people, fearing some innovation, got them by persuasion to rise, and conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.

“The sedition standing in these terms, the fourth or fifth day after the putting over of these men into the island, arrived the Peloponnesian fleet from Cyllene, where, since their voyage of Ionia, they had lain at anchor, to the number of three and fifty sail. Alcidas had the command of these, as before, and Brasidas came with him as a counsellor. And having first put in at Sybota, a haven of the continent, they came on the next morning by break of day toward Corcyra.

“The Corcyreans being in a great tumult and fear, both of the seditious within, and of the invasion without, made ready threescore galleys, and still as any of them were manned, sent them out against the enemy; whereas the Athenians had advised them to give leave to them to go forth first, and then the Corcyreans to follow after with the whole fleet together. But when their scattered ships neared the enemy, two of them immediately deserted, and in others they that were aboard went together by the oars, and nothing was done in due order. The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, opposed themselves to the Corcyreans with twenty galleys only, the rest they set in array against the twelve galleys of Athens.

“The Corcyreans having come disorderly up, and by few at once, were of their own fault in much distress; but the Athenians, fearing an overmatch of numbers, and that they should be surrounded, did not charge upon the close array, nor on the centre of the enemy; but attacked the wing, and sunk one of their galleys: and when the Peloponnesians afterwards had put their fleet into a circular figure, they then went about and about it, endeavouring to put them into disorder; which they that were fighting against the Corcyreans perceiving, and fearing such another chance as befel them formerly at Naupactus, went to their aid, and uniting themselves, came upon the Athenians all together. But they, backing their oars, retreated with their prows to the enemy, that the Corcyreans should take that time to escape in; they themselves in the mean time going as leisurely back as was possible, and keeping the enemy still opposed to them. Such was this battle, and it ended about sunset.

“The Corcyreans fearing lest the enemy, in pursuit of their victory, should have come directly against the city, or take aboard the men which they had put over into the island, or do them some other mischief, fetched back the men into the temple of Juno again, and guarded the city. But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the battle, yet durst not invade the city, but having taken thirteen of the Corcyrean galleys, went back into the continent from whence they had set forth. The next day they came not unto the city, no more than before, although it was in great tumult and affright: and though also Brasidas (as it is reported) advised Alcidas to it, but had not equal authority: but only landed soldiers at the promontory of Leucimna, and wasted their territory.

“In the mean time the people of Corcyra, fearing extremely lest those galleys should come against the city, not only conferred with those in sanctuary, and with the rest, about how the city might be preserved, but also induced some of them to serve on shipboard. For notwithstanding the confusion they had still manned thirty galleys, in expectation that the fleet of the enemy should have entered. But the Peloponnesians having been wasting of their fields till it was about noon, went their ways again. And during the night the Corcyreans had notice by beacon–fires of threescore Athenian galleys coming toward them from Leucas, which the Athenians, upon intelligence of the sedition, and of the fleet to go to Corcyra under Alcidas, had sent to aid them, under the conduct of Eurymedon the son of Thucles.

“The Peloponnesians, therefore, as soon as night came, sailed speedily home, keeping still the shore, and causing their galleys to be carried over at the Isthmus of Leucas, that they might not come in sight as they doubled it. But the people of Corcyra, hearing of the Attic galleys coming in, and the going off of the Peloponnesians, brought into the city the Messenians,[40] who till this time had been kept outside the walls, and appointing the galleys which they had equipped to come about into the Hillaic haven; they in the mean time slew all the contrary faction they could lay hands on, and also afterwards threw overboard out of the same galleys all those (i. e., of the oligarchical party) they had before persuaded to embark, and so went thence. And coming to the temple of Juno, they persuaded fifty of those that had taken sanctuary, to refer themselves to a legal trial; all which they condemned to die. But most of those who had taken sanctuary, that is, all those that were not induced to stand to trial by law, when they saw what was done, killed one another there, right in the temple: some hanged themselves on trees; every one, as he had means, made himself away. And for seven days together that Eurymedon staid there with his threescore galleys, the Corcyreans did nothing but kill such of their city as they took to be their enemies, laying to their charge indeed that they had conspired against the commons, but some among them were slain upon private hatred, and some by their debtors, for the money which they had lent them. All forms of death were then seen, and (as in such cases it usually falls out) whatsoever had happened at any time, happened also then, and more. For the father slew his son, men were dragged out of the temples, and then slain hard by; and some walled up within the temple of Bacchus[41] died there. So cruel was this sedition; and it seemed so the more, because it was among these men the first.

“For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and quarrels arose every where between the patrons of the commons, that sought to bring in the Athenians, and the Few[42] that desired to bring in the LacedÆmonians. Now in time of peace they could have no pretence, nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being war, and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their enemies, and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily got foreign help to their end. And many heinous things happened in the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before, and shall be ever, as long as human nature is the same, yet they are more violent, or more tranquil, and of different kinds, according to the several[43] conjunctures at which they occur. For in peace and prosperity both cities and private men are better minded, because they fall not into such emergencies as constrain men to do things, whether they will or no; but war taking away the affluence of daily necessaries, is a most violent master, and conformeth most men’s passions to the present occasion. So sedition prevailed in the cities, and those that fell into it later, having heard what had been done in the former, far exceeded them in newness of conceit, both for the art of assailing, and for the strangeness of their revenges. The received value of names imposed for signification of things, was changed into arbitrary: for inconsiderate boldness was counted true–hearted manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak of cowardice; to be wise in every thing, to be lazy in every thing. A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour. To re–advise for the better security, was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation. He that was fierce, was always trusty; and he that contraried such a one, was suspected. He that did insidiate, if he took, was a wise man; but he that could find out the trap, a cleverer man than he: but he that had been so provident as not to need to do one or the other, was said to be a dissolver of fellowship, and one that stood in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another in the doing of an evil act, or that could persuade another thereto, that never meant it, was commended. To be kin to another, was not to be so near as to be of his fellowship, because these were ready to undertake any thing, without standing upon pretexts. For these fellowships[44] looked not to benefits consistent with the existing laws, but to self–aggrandizement, contrary to them. And as for mutual trust amongst them, it was confirmed not so much by divine law,[45] as by the communication of guilt. And what was handsomely spoken by their adversaries, they received with an eye to their actions, to see whether they were too strong for them or not, and not ingenuously. To be revenged was in more request, than never to have received injury. And oaths of reconcilement (if any were) given by one to another, because in the present conjuncture they could do nought else, were binding, as long as the parties had no power otherwise; but upon opportunity, he that first durst, if he saw an unguarded place, thought his revenge sweeter by the trust than if he had taken the open way. And this course was valued both for its security, and because he that circumvented his adversary by fraud assumed to himself withal a mastery in point of wit. And dishonest men for the most part are sooner called able, than simple men honest. And men are ashamed of this title, but take a pride in the other. The cause of this is desire of rule, out of avarice and ambition, and the zeal of contention[46] from those two proceeding. For such as were of authority in the cities, both of the one and the other faction, the one under the decent pretext of political equality of the many, the other of moderate aristocracy, though in words they seemed to be servants of the public, they made it in effect but the prize of their contention. And striving by whatsoever means to overcome, both ventured on most horrible outrages, and revenged them even beyond the provocations, without any regard of justice, or the public good, but limiting them, each faction, by their own appetite: and stood ready, whether by unjust sentence, or with their own hands, when they should get the uppermost, to satisfy their spite. So that neither side thought to do any thing by honest means; but they were best spoken of, that could pass a business though against the grain, with fair words. The neutrals of the city were destroyed by both factions; partly because they would not side with them, and partly for envy that they should so escape.

“Thus was wickedness on foot in every kind, throughout all Greece, by the occasion of the party conflicts. Sincerity (whereof there is much in a generous nature) was laughed down, and vanished. And it was far the best course to stand distrustfully against each other, for neither were words powerful, nor oaths terrible enough to assure reconciliation. And being all of them, the more they considered, the more desperate of security, they rather contrived how to avoid a mischief, than were able to rely on any man’s faith. And for the most part such as had the least wit had the best success; for both their own defect, and the subtilty of their adversaries, putting them in a great fear to be overcome in words, or at least in pre–insidiation, by their enemies’ great craft, they therefore went roundly to work with them, with deeds. Whereas the other, thinking in their arrogance that they should be aware in time, and that they needed not to take by force what they might do by plot, were thereby unprovided, and so the more easily slain.

“In Corcyra then were most of these evils committed first: and besides these, all that men might perpetrate in retaliation, who had been tyrannically governed by that very party which they now saw in their power; or that men just freed from their accustomed poverty, and greedily coveting their neighbour’s goods, would against justice agree to; or which men, assailing each other, not upon desire of gain, but as equal against equal, in the intemperance of anger would cruelly and inexorably execute. And the common course of life being at that time confounded in the city, the nature of man, which is wont even against law to do evil, gotten now above the law, was very ready to display itself as intemperately passionate, too strong for justice, and an enemy to all superiority. For they would never else have preferred revenge to sanctity, and gain to that condition of justice, in which envy would have lost its power to do harm. And for the laws common to all men in such cases (which, as long as they be in force, give hope to all that suffer injury), men desire not to leave them standing, against the need a man in danger may have of them, but by their revenges on others, to be beforehand in subverting them.[47]

“Such were the passions of the Corcyreans first of all other Grecians, towards one another in the city. And Eurymedon and the Athenians departed with their galleys. Afterwards such of the Corcyreans as had fled (for there escaped about five hundred of them) having seized on the forts in the continent, established themselves in their own territory on the mainland opposite the island, and from thence came over and robbed the islanders, and did them much hurt; and there grew a great famine in the city. They likewise sent ambassadors to LacedÆmon and Corinth, to negotiate concerning their return; and when they could get nothing done, having gotten boats, and some auxiliary soldiers, they passed a while after to the number of about six hundred into the island. Where when they had set their boats on fire, that they might have no hope but in the making themselves masters of the country, they went up into the hill Istone, and having there fortified themselves with a wall, infested those within, and were masters of the territory.[48]

“In the seventh year of the war[49] Eurymedon and Sophocles, after their departure from Pylus with the Athenian fleet towards Sicily, arriving at Corcyra, joined with those of the city, and made war upon those Corcyreans which lay encamped upon the hill Istone, and which, after the sedition, had come over, and made themselves masters of the country, and done much harm: and having assaulted their fortification, took it. But the men all in one troop escaped to a certain high ground, and thence made their composition, which was this; ‘that they should deliver up the foreigners that aided them; and that they themselves, having rendered their arms, should stand to the judgment of the people of Athens.’ Hereupon the generals granted them truce, and transported them to the island of Ptychia, to be there in custody till the Athenians should send for them; with this condition, ‘that if any one of them should be taken running away, then the truce to be broken for them all.’ But the leaders of the commons of Corcyra, fearing lest the Athenians would not kill those who were sent to them, devise against them this plot. To some few of those in the island they secretly send their friends, and instruct them to say, as if forsooth, it were for good will, that it was their best course with all speed to get away (and withal to offer to provide them of a boat), for that the Athenian commanders intended verily to deliver them to the Corcyrean people.

“When they were persuaded to do so, and that a boat was treacherously prepared, as they rowed away they were taken, and the truce being now broken, were all given up into the hands of the Corcyreans. It did much further this plot, by giving to the pretence held out an appearance of reality, and making the agents in it less fearful, that the Athenian generals evidently did not wish the men to be carried home by others, whilst they themselves were to go into Sicily, and the honour of it be ascribed to those that should convoy them. The Corcyreans having received them into their hands, imprisoned them in a large edifice, from whence afterwards they took them out by twenty at a time, and made them pass through a lane of men of arms, bound together, and receiving strokes and thrusts from those on either side, according as any one espied his enemy. And to hasten the pace of those that went slowliest on, others were set to follow them with whips.

“They had taken out of the room in this manner, and slain, to the number of threescore, before they that remained knew it, who thought they were but removed, and carried to some other place. But when they knew the truth, some or other having told them, they then cried out to the Athenians, and bid them, if they wished their death, kill them themselves; and refused any more to go out of the building, nor would suffer, they said, as long as they were able, any man to come in. But neither had the Corcyreans any purpose to force entrance by the door, but getting up to the top of the house, uncovered the roof, and threw tiles, and shot arrows at them. They in prison defended themselves as well as they could; but many also slew themselves with the arrows shot by the enemy, by thrusting them into their throats, and strangling themselves with the cords of certain beds that were in the room, and with halters made of their own garments rent in pieces. And having continued most part of the night (for night overtook them in the action), partly strangling themselves by all such means as they found, and partly shot at from above, they all perished. When day came, the Corcyreans laid them one across another[50] in carts, and carried them out of the city. And of their wives, as many as were taken in the fortification, they made bond–women. In this manner were the Corcyreans that kept the hill,[51] brought to destruction by the commons. And thus ended this far–spread sedition, for so much as concerned this present war: for other seditions there remained nothing worth the relation.”[52]

It would be difficult to find a more thoroughly hateful state of society than that which appears from this passage, and from the description of the plague of Athens, to have existed in Greece at this period. The picture, it is to be remembered, comes to us on the authority of one whose impartiality and deep powers of observation are alike unquestioned, no splenetic, no visionary, but one who had mixed largely and in high station among the stirring times of which he writes. The most astonishing circumstance connected with the depravity here exhibited, is the short period in which it appears to have shot up into such rank growth. We possess, it is true, little knowledge of any thing but the public acts of Greece anterior to the Peloponnesian war, at which time the contemporary historian, and still more the contemporary comedian Aristophanes, supply us with abundant notices of private life, which are continued and enlarged by the philosophers and orators. Still, as far as we have the means of judging, there seems no reason to ascribe to the Greeks, until about the Peloponnesian war, a smaller share of morality and religion than has usually been found among heathen nations. Whence then in so short a time this utter loss of moral sense and disruption of the bonds of society? The question is not an easy one to answer, but the substance of the best answer that we can give is comprised in the introductory chapter to this volume.

To supply a series of parallels to this domestic contest is scarcely possible. Among insurrections and civil wars, events of equal atrocity and more astounding magnitude might be found, but scarcely events of the same character. We naturally turn first to the other great nation of antiquity. Here we are warned against the most obvious comparison by a late eminent scholar. After speaking of the dangers incident to the struggle between the aristocracy and the people in that often–occurring form of a nation’s early existence, when it is divided into a privileged race or caste, whose power is founded on conquest, and a commonalty personally free, but politically dependant, as were the Saxons, while the distinction between Saxon and Norman blood continued in England; after speaking of the dangers which beset that contest which is sure to take place when the spread of wealth and knowledge has equalized the personal qualities of the rulers and the ruled, he continues: “If the nation escapes these, either originally or finally, it enters upon its state of manhood, and is exposed to a somewhat different succession of struggles. The contest is then between property and numbers, and wherever it has come to a crisis, I know not that it has in any instance terminated favourably. Such was the state of Greece in the time of Thucydides; of Rome from the passing of the Publilian laws to the end of the commonwealth: and such has been the state of England since the Revolution of 1688. Comparisons drawn from the preceding period are inapplicable to this; while on the other hand, as the phenomena of this second period arise out of causes connected with the earlier state of things, they cannot be clearly understood unless that former state be fully known to us. Thus, to argue that the Romans were less bloody than the Greeks from a comparison between the factions of the Peloponnesian war, and the struggles of the Roman commons against the patricians, is to compare the two nations under very different circumstances; it is instituting a comparison between the intensity of our passions in manhood and in childhood. The bloody factions of Corcyra and Megara are analogous to the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, of CÆsar and Pompey, of Brutus and Cassius against the Triumvirs: the harmless contests between the commons and patricians can only be compared to those which prevailed in Greece before the Persian invasion, when the party of the coast at Athens was disputing the exclusive ascendency so long enjoyed by the eupatridÆ or party of the plain.[53] And the true conclusion is, that the second contest between property and numbers is far more inevitably accompanied by atrocious crimes, than that earlier quarrel, in which property and numbers were united against property and birth.”[54]

The Corcyrean sedition differed from the secession to the Mons Sacer, and other disputes between patricians and plebeians, in being a struggle of parties, not ranks. Very little positive information concerning the constitution of the island has been preserved.[55] Originally, probably, its Corinthian colonists established an oligarchy: but the prosecution of maritime affairs was always held greatly to favour the ascendency of the people, and in Thucydides we find no trace of a privileged body of citizens at Corcyra any more than at Athens. When speaking of the 250, whom the Corinthians selected as a sort of hostages to regain their influence, he calls them, “for the most part the first men of the city in power.”[56] Elsewhere he describes them as “those in possession of things,” or “the few,”[57] but not as the magistracy, or in terms which lead us to suppose that they formed a constitutional aristocracy either of birth or wealth. This, therefore, was a branch of the great struggle which gave its character to the whole Peloponnesian war, whether the oligarchical principle, under the patronage of LacedÆmon, or the democratic under the patronage of Athens, should reign in Greece. The co–existence of the two in peace seems, from the restless and intriguing temper of the people, to have been impossible; and the experience of other cities had shown that for the worsted party there was no security but in flight, attended usually by sentence of exile and confiscation. And there is no authority to which men submit so reluctantly, no hardships which they feel so keenly, as those which arise from the elevation of their former equals. The circumstances of the times, therefore, combined with the spreading moral pestilence to give a desperation to this contest, from which the early dissensions of patricians and plebeians, happily for Rome, were free. Here each party had a definite object to contend for; the one, the relaxation of oppressive privileges; the other, to maintain unimpaired the immunities and dignity of their order: and each had wisdom, the one to be moderate in its demands; the other to concede moderately, rather than hazard the very being of the state by an appeal to arms. No personal or political hatred inflamed the passions, unless where some enslaved debtor was maddened by suffering, or some hot–headed patrician, such as the old legends of Rome represented Coriolanus to be, became impatient that the swinish multitude should believe they had rights; each party felt that the other was necessary to its welfare, and though driven to violence, the plebeians still looked up with respect and affection to their hereditary aristocracy.

As these disturbances belong to an earlier, so the civil wars of Marius and Sylla, and those which ended in the establishment of the Empire, belong, we think, to a more advanced stage of society than does the Corcyrean sedition, which is compared to them in the foregoing quotation. Rome had reached, and had passed the period at which a true democracy becomes impossible except through the medium of representation; while at Corcyra, even when the popular faction was supreme, the government was an oligarchy, in respect of the whole population of the state, of which slaves and foreigners constituted, we may presume, a considerable majority. The legislative and the armed body were identical; a part of that body might triumph over the rest, but no one could mount on the shoulders of the people to a military despotism, and then kick away the step by which he had risen. No leader seems to have risen to the absolute power of Marius, or Sylla, or CÆsar; if there had, it must have been by consent of the prevailing party, who would therefore have been implicated in his actions. At Rome the case was very different: the legislative authority centred in the resident citizens, the military power of the state was more than equally shared with them by the provincial armies, composed partly of barbarians, partly of subjects of the state, entitled to a greater or lesser share of the privileges of citizenship, but not to vote in the assemblies of the people, and partly, it is true, of citizens, but those long absent from the seat of government, and careless about politics, but devoted to the leader who had led them on to plunder, honour, and victory. Some faction therefore was to be courted to gain place and power, but he who had gained them, and with them military command and influence, was in great measure independent of his former associates. Sylla and Marius were terrible to friends as well as foes, and it would be unfair to charge upon the Roman people the enormous crimes committed under the military tyrannies which they established.

If we look for parallels in modern history, the search will not be more successful. The domestic quarrels as well as the structure of the Italian states, bear a close analogy to those of the Greek republics, and the contests of the oligarchical and democratic parties, and the influence of Sparta or Athens, as one or the other prevailed, may be closely exemplified by the bitter quarrels of the Guelphs and Ghibelines, and the interest exerted, by means of these parties, by the Pope and the Emperor. But full as is Italian history of desperate feuds, we cannot call to mind any one worthy to be compared with the transactions at Corcyra. The massacre, called the Sicilian Vespers, when 8000 French were surprised and slain in one night, by a simultaneous insurrection of the native Sicilians, is a memorable and frightful example of popular revenge: but the act of a people rising in defence of its rights, atrocious as is such a method of asserting them, is not to be placed by the side of so cold–blooded, and unprovoked, and faithless a massacre as that of the conquered Corcyreans. The massacre of St. Bartholomew might compete with it in point of treachery, but the ground of quarrel, and the relation of the contending parties, were entirely dissimilar.

The outrages committed in France by the insurgent peasantry, called Jacquerie, are unlike the massacres at Corcyra, inasmuch as they belong to an earlier stage of society, a stage again different from that contemplated by Dr. Arnold, when he speaks of the harmless nature of that earlier quarrel in which property and numbers are united against property and birth. These risings, and the corresponding risings in England, were the acts of men without property, and many of them without a legal capability of acquiring it; men hostile to all the institutions of society, because to them society had been little but an engine of oppression. They were the efforts of brute force against all that is superior to itself; the rage of the untamed wolf after he has broken his chain. We say this not in justification of the conduct of their feudal lords, nor in censure of their earnest desire to break the yoke which bore them down to the ground. But whether their cause was good or bad, the method of their advocating it was brutal; and herein servile wars, if not most formidable as to their result, are most to be deprecated, because the passions of each party are sure to be exasperated to the uttermost: and because the insurgents, being without the pale of the laws of war, have no temptation to show mercy, and no hope but in victory. And so to the Jacquerie, every thing more refined or exalted than themselves was the object of their deadly hate. They had no thought to raise themselves; that was beyond the grasp of their minds: but they were bent on pulling down others to their own level, so that distinctions the most inoffensive or laudable were as odious to them as the rank and power which had been misused to the oppression of the commonalty. “Be it known unto thee by these presence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must sweep the court clear of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar–school: and whereas, before our fore–fathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and contrary to the king, his crown, and his dignity, thou hast built a paper–mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters that they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read thou hast hanged them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most worthy to live.”[58]

This picture is somewhat highly coloured, but if the reader will consult Holinshed for the account of Wat Tyler’s rebellion in 1381, he will find that there is good authority for it. “To recite what was done in every part of the realme, in time of these hellish troubles, it is not possible; but this is to be considered, that the rage of the commons was universallie such, as it might seem they had generallie conspired together to do what mischeefe they could devise. As among sundrie other, what wickednesse was it to compell teachers of children in grammar schooles to swear never to instruct any in their art! Again, they could never have a more mischievous meaning than to burn and destroy all old and auncient monuments, and to murder and despatch out of the way all such as were able to commit to memorie either any new or old records. For it was dangerous among them to be known for one that was learned, and more dangerous if any man were found with a penner and inkhorn at his side, for such seldom escaped from them with life.”[59] The fidelity with which Shakspeare has copied the chronicles may be readily exemplified from a variety of passages.

Henry VI., ii. iv. 2.

It is time, however, to proceed to the historical evidence on which our statements of the excesses of the Jacquerie are founded.

“Anon (A. D. 1358) there began a marvelouse trybulacion in the realme of France, for certayne people of the common villages, without any head or ruler, assembled togyder in Beauvoisin. In the beginning they passed nat a hundred in nombre: they sayd how the noblemen of the realme of Fraunce, knyghtes, and squyers, shamed the realme, and that it shulde be a grete wealth to distroy them all; and eche of them sayd it was true, and sayd alle with one voice,—Shame have he that doth nat his power to distroy all the gentylmen of the realme. Thus they gathered togyder without any other counsayle, and without any armure, saving with staves and knyves, and so went to the house of a knyght dwelling thereby, and brake up his house, and slew the knyght, and the lady, and all his children, grete and small, and brent his house: and so dyd they to dyvers other castelles and good houses. And they multiplied so that they were a six thousand; and ever as they went forward they increased, for such lyke as they were fell ever to them; so that every gentylman fledde fro them, and took their wyves and chyldren with them, and fledde x or xx leages off to be in suretie, and left their houses voyde and their goods therein.—These myschevous people thus assembled without capitayne or armure, robbed, brent, and slew all gentylmen that they coude lay handes on, and forced and ravysshed ladyes and damoselles, and dyd such shameful dedes, that no humayn creature ought to think on any such, and he that dyd most mischiefe was most pleased with them, and greatest maister.—Whan the gentylmen of Beauvoisin, of Corbois, of Vermandois, and of other lands whereas these myschevous people were conversant, saw the woodnesse[60] among them, they sent for socours to their frendes into Flanders, to Brabant, to Hainault, and to Bohemia: so there came fro all partes, and so all these gentylmen straungers assembled togyder, and dyd sette upon these people wher they might fynde them, and slew and hanged them upon trees by heapes. The kynge of Naver on a day slew of them mo than thre thousand, beside Cleremont in Beauvoisin. It was time to take them up, for and they had been all togyder assembled, they were mo than an hundred thousand, and when they were demanded why they dyd so yvell dedes, they wolde answer and say, they could nat tell, but they did as they sawe other do, thinking thereby to have distroyed all the nobles and gentylmen of the world.”[61]

It was the same spirit which somewhat later, in England, prompted that rebellion of Wat Tyler, of which we have above spoken. This was a servile war, produced by oppression and misery; a rising of the serfs against the nobles, “who hade grete fraunchise over the commons, and kepeth them in servage, that is to say, their tenants ought by custom to laboure the lorde’s landes, to gather and bring home theyr corne, and some to thrash and to fanne; and by servage to make theyr hay, and to hew theyr wood, and bring it home: all these things they ought to do by servage.”——“These unhappy people beganne to styrre because they were kept in grete servage; and in the begynning of the world, they sayd, there were no bondmen; wherefore they mayntayned that none ought to be bonde, without he dyd treason to his lorde, as Lucifer dyd to God; but they sayd they coude have no such batayle, for they were nouther angels nor spirittes, but men formed to the similitude of their lordes. Of this imagynacyon was a folisshe priest of Kent, called Johan Ball, who wolde oft tymes, on the sondaye after masse, assemble the people about him, and say thus, A ye good people, the mater goth nat well to passe in Englande, nor shall nat do tyll every thing be common; and that there be no vyllayns nor gentylmen, but that we be all unied togyder, and that the lordes be no greater maisters than we be. What have we deserved, or why sholde we be thus kept in servage? We be all come fro one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or showe that they be gretter lordes than we be?”[62] Part of the matter of the priest’s sermon was well enough, and the cause was good, if its supporters had been capable of self–government; but their object was to establish anarchy, not liberty, and none will be found hardy enough to regret their failure.

After dwelling so long on things which ought to be distinguished from the Corcyrean sedition, it is time now, if ever, to produce those which admit of being compared with it. We have but two to bring forward: the second bears a more than usual resemblance to it in respect of the events which took place; the first bears little resemblance to it in respect of events, but is distinguished, if we may trust the contemporary historian, by a forgetfulness of natural ties, and relaxation of the bonds of society, very like that described by Thucydides, and not less worth noticing because the two arose out of entirely different circumstances, political and other. We allude to the seditions which tore Constantinople, especially under the reign of Justinian, ostensibly commencing in so petty a cause as the superiority of one colour to another in skill or fortune in the public games, in which those who contended for prizes, like our jockies, were distinguished by colours. “The race,” says Gibbon, “in its first institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a light green and a cerulean blue, were afterwards introduced, and as the races were repeated twenty–five times, one hundred chariots contributed in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature in the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons, and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced either a plentiful harvest, or a prosperous navigation, and the hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than the blind ardour of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and fortunes to the colour which they had espoused.”[63]

With the seat of government, the amusements and the laws of the Roman circus were of course transferred to Constantinople. Here the mutual jealousy of the colours soon became combined with political and theological quarrels, and gave rise to disturbances which shook some emperors on their thrones, and vitally affected the peace and welfare of the state. The historian of the eastern empire has not traced the steps by which these graver discords became connected with the badges of amusement. A scholar of our own day has collected the scattered facts which bear on this question, but still without furnishing a satisfactory account of the origin or history of these divisions.[64] It may indeed be inferred from a passage in Procopius, which we shall presently quote, that even in his time no account could be given or reason be assigned for so preposterous and blind an enmity. Nor will this surprise any person who reflects how easily an accidental quarrel is perpetuated by the adoption of a name or symbol, and how greedily the vulgar adopt the outward sign of faction, regardless of the principles which it indicates. Many bloody tumults and desperate feuds would have been spared to Ireland if green and orange had never been adopted as the signs of national and religious hatred; for men would soon have ceased to care or inquire whether their neighbour went to church or chapel, had not the insulting badges of ascendancy and of dissent been continually paraded before their eyes. Any measure which did away with the use of party colours at elections would contribute largely to the quiet and well–being of England. Whatever raises an ostensible division between two classes of society should be sedulously discouraged by a government. The late Lord Liverpool, according to a current story, showed his prudence in wearing and recommending white hats, when that article of dress was the badge of a party violently opposed to his government. His intention was answered perfectly, and we now wear what we please without compromising our political faith.

Whatever was the origin and progress of the quarrel, we find in the early part of the sixth century the blue and green factions inveterately opposed to each other; the red having merged in the green, and the white in the blue. In the reign of Anastasius, the greens having brought concealed weapons into the theatre, massacred at once 3000 of their blue adversaries. A soldier of fortune, named Justin, succeeded Anastasius, and was succeeded by his own nephew, Justinian, during whose reign the blue faction gained the ascendancy: “A secret attachment to the family or sect of Anastasius was imputed to the greens; the blues were zealously devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and Justinian, and their grateful patron protected, above five years, the disorders of a faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace, the senate, and capitals of the East.”[65] “In every city,” says the contemporary Procopius, “the people are from old time split into two factions, of the blue and green; but it is not long since this frenzy first possessed them, that in the cause of these names and colours in which they appear at the public games, they will spend their substance, expose their bodies to the bitterest indignities, and even consent to die by a shameful death. And while they fight with the opposite party they cannot tell the nature of their quarrel; being at the same time aware that even if they get the upper hand in battle, they will then be led to prison, and suffer a death of the worst tortures. This hatred of one man to another springs up without cause; but it remains endless, yielding neither to the rights of kindred or friendship, even though brethren, or such near relations, be partisans of these colours. And so long as their faction may have the uppermost, they care neither for things human nor divine, whether there be any impiety offered towards God, or whether the laws and government be violated by friend or enemy. For being themselves probably in want of common necessaries, they care not however deeply their country be injured, so long as their own party is likely to thrive by it. And even women share in this taint, not merely following their husbands, but even opposing them (if it shall so chance), though they go never to the theatres, and are not therefore excited by any such motives. So that I can call this nothing better than a disease of the mind.”[66]

“In the Anecdotes, he speaks again, and more fully, of the excesses committed by the blues under the protection of Justinian.

“They dressed their hair in a manner new to the Romans, letting the moustache and beard grow to an extreme length, like the Persians, while they shaved the fore part of their heads to the very temples, leaving it to grow as long and thick as it liked behind, in imitation of the MassagetÆ, after whom they called this the Hunnish mode. In dress they affected a splendour beyond their means, defraying the cost at other men’s expense. Their sleeves were made very close at the wrist, but up towards the shoulder they spread to an unutterable breadth.[67] So that in the theatre or hippodrome as often as they moved their hands in shouting, or encouraging others, as was their custom, they usually raised the limb to make fools think their bodies so robust, as that a garment of that size was necessary; not perceiving that by the emptiness of the garment the spareness of the body was the more shown. At first they carried arms, by night openly, and by day wore double–edged daggers concealed under their clothes; and coming out in companies as it grew dark, they stripped the better sort either in the open market or in passages, robbing those who fell into their hands of cloaks, golden brooches, or whatever else it might be. And some they even killed after robbing them, that they might tell no tales. By these doings all men were much grieved, and especially those that were not of the blue faction (for even they themselves went not scot–free), and from thenceforth men wore brass brooches, and girdles and cloaks beneath their condition.... There was no known crime which at this time was not committed and left unpunished. First they only killed their adversaries, then advancing in guilt they slew those who never had offended them. Many hired them to take off an enemy, which they did under pretence that the dead man was of the green party, though really he were quite unknown to them. And these things were not done in darkness as before, but in every hour of the day and place of the city, and before the eyes of the most eminent men: for being in no fear of punishment they cared not for concealment; but rather esteemed it a glory to those who laid claim to strength and manhood, that at one blow they could kill any unarmed person who came across them. In this slippery conjuncture no one had any hope of surviving; for no place was strong, no season sacred enough to warrant security; for even in the most honoured temples and assemblies men were slain, and no account taken of them. There was no more trusting either in friends or relations, for many perished by those who were nearest to them. And no inquiry was made into what had been done, but evil fell without warning, and no one helped him that was down. Law and contracts were no longer binding; every thing went according to the will of the strongest, and the state was like an unestablished tyranny, continually passing into new hands and beginning afresh. The minds of the authorities seemed to be amazed and enslaved by fear of one man; and the judges determined causes not according to law and justice, but as the parties in the suit were in good or bad odour with the parties in the state. For it was a capital offence that a judge should controvert the orders of the ruling party, the blues.”[68]

Such was the state of Constantinople, the blues exulting in the royal favour, when, in January, 532, the citizens were assembled in the hippodrome, the Emperor himself presiding over the games. The green faction disturbed the peace of the assembly by complaints, until at length Justinian was induced to enter into a parley with them by the voice of an officer called Mandator, a sort of civil aide–de–camp, whose duty was to receive and transmit his sovereign’s orders. The dialogue which ensued is justly characterized by Gibbon, who has only given a short specimen of it, as the most singular that ever passed between a prince and his subjects.

We may premise, to account for the strange and unintelligible turn of many of the sentences, that the original is written in the corrupt Greek popularly spoken at Constantinople in the sixth century, and is full of allusions to which we possess no key, and words which the lexicographers have not explained, and sentences in which it is not possible to make out any grammatical construction. These difficulties, however, make the passage the more curious; inasmuch as they give reason to suppose that the dialogue was taken down as it occurred, and has not been polished in passing through the hands of historians.

This seems to be a theological gibe at the unorthodox party, which they repel with anger. There is an ambiguity in the reply, which it is not easy to translate, because, from the corruption of the text, or from the debased Greek in which the dialogue is chiefly written, we can come to no certain conclusion as to the real meaning. They express their willingness to be baptized according to order, and use a word which has been interpreted either to mean “Bring water,” or to confer on Justinian the appellation of “Pump.” There certainly was something in it which raised the Emperor’s wrath, and extracted from him a reply more to the purpose than any yet made.

After this the green party quitted the hippodrome, and left there the Emperor and the blues. The sequel may warn sovereigns against encouraging faction for their own ends. At this moment seven notorious murderers of both factions were paraded through the city previous to their execution. Five were immediately put to death, the other two obtained a respite by the breaking of the rope which should have hanged them. One of these surviving wretches belonged to the blue, the other to the green faction; and the parties forgot their enmity for a time to join in taking vengeance upon the government, which durst do justice upon their members. The consequence was a desperate tumult and insurrection, which lasted five days, during which a great part of the city was burnt; and which is known by the name of Nika, Conquer, from the watchword adopted by the rioters. For the history of it we must refer to Gibbon, or to the original authorities quoted by him, especially Procopius (Pers. i. 24) and Theophanes. At length Justinian found means to revive the mutual animosity of the factions; the blues resumed their allegiance to their protector, and the greens, left alone in the hippodrome, were attacked by the veteran troops of Belisarius, supported by their inveterate opponents. More than 30,000 persons are said to have perished in the massacre.

A curious anecdote connected with this subject is related elsewhere by Procopius. When Chosroes, the King of Persia, invaded Syria, he went to Apamea to see the sports of the circus; and having heard of Justinian’s devotion to the blue faction, he thought it expedient to patronize the green. The blue charioteer at first had the advantage, the green following close upon his track. Chosroes thinking this was done on purpose to thwart him, became very angry, and cried out with threats, that it was not fair to give CÆsar the start,[73] and ordered the foremost to hold in their horses, and let the green get before them. This was done, and Chosroes and the greens plumed themselves on their victory.

The other example which we proposed to bring forward, which probably has already suggested itself to many of our readers, is one of the most memorable events of the French Revolution, the massacre of September 2–6, 1792. A short preface may serve to introduce it, since the history of the Revolution is pretty generally familiar.

In the summer of 1792 the executive power of the state was in effect wrested from the nominal authority, the Legislative Assembly, by a body of men styled the Commune, who had possessed themselves of the municipal government of Paris. In this body the leading persons were the flagitious triumvirate, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. It is needless to speculate on the motives of such men. Whether the deed which we are about to relate was perpetrated only to further the ends of their party; whether, as some have said, it was prompted by the desire to get rid of those who might lay claim to a large mass of valuable personal property which had been seized from persons who had been denounced and arrested, and is said to have been embezzled by those disinterested patriots; or whether it were prompted solely by a savage thirst for blood:—which of these, or what other motive was the moving cause of this transaction, is of so little consequence towards determining its character, that it would be a waste of words to institute the inquiry. We proceed briefly to relate the facts.

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At the end of August, 1792, the invasion of the Prussians, their advance to Verdun, and the capture of that strong place, created a great panic in the capital. Apprehensions were felt or expressed of a corresponding movement within the country on the part of the royalists, and the stern Danton asserted, in boding words, that it was necessary to strike fear into those who were disaffected to the republic. Before this time many aristocrats, chiefly priests and nobles, had been confined within the various prisons of Paris. Their numbers were now increased to a fearful extent by recent arrests of persons adverse to the Jacobin party, which then ruled in the Commune, until all these receptacles of human misery were filled to overflowing. The near approach of the Prussians was doubly favourable to the views of that party; it gave a colourable pretext for taking strong measures against all who could be represented as favouring the views of the invaders, and a reason for summoning to the field the citizens who could be called on to bear arms. The city being thus cleared of a large portion of those who were most able, and probably most inclined to interfere by force in the cause of justice and humanity, a free and safe course was left open to the fury of that turbulent party, whose yoke bore so heavy upon the liberated nation. It was determined by the junta in authority, that the safety of France required the massacre of the prisoners; and in the Marseillois and the mob of the capital, fit agents of the bloody mandate were readily found.

The total number of persons confined in the Parisian prisons is so differently stated that it is no easy matter even to approximate to the truth; it is estimated by Scott (vol. ii. p. 41) at about 8000. Early on the morning of September 2, news arrived of the capture of Verdun by the Prussians. This struck a terror into Paris, by which the projectors of the massacre hastened to profit. The barriers were shut, the tocsin sounded, the alarm–gun fired. The prisons of Les Carmes, the Abbaye, and La Force, were first attacked, not in consequence of any general popular impulse; not by multitudes, such as had carried the Bastille and the Tuileries against superior arms and discipline; but by a crew of ruffians, composed partly of Marseillois, partly of the savage mob of Paris, in number not perhaps much exceeding a hundred, and goaded, it is said, with wine and spirits mixed with stimulating and maddening drugs. Armed with pikes, sabres, and similar weapons, they beset the prison doors to the sound of the Marseillois hymn, and demanded that the conspirators, as they called them, should be delivered into their hands: and the gaolers offered no resistance to their entrance.

Les Carmes, the Carmelite convent, had been converted into a prison for suspected ecclesiastics. This was the first object of attack; and, without parley, or the pretence of trial or inquiry, the murderers burst in and began to fire on their victims. “Where,” it was asked, “is the Archbishop of Arles?” That prelate advanced boldly, and was cut down without his uttering a word of complaint. Others were hunted round the gardens, and shot like wild beasts; some escaped over the walls. At last, to proceed in a more orderly manner, and give less opportunity for escape, the survivors were all collected in the church, and led down two by two to be executed in the garden. The Bishop of Saintes, whose leg had been broken by a bullet, is reported to have said, “Gentlemen, I am ready to go and die, like the rest; but you see the state in which I am, my leg is broken; I beg that you will assist me, and I will go willingly to execution.” The difficulty of obtaining correct information concerning these events may be estimated from the statements of the number of ecclesiastics who perished in Les Carmes. A royalist account raises it to 1168, a republican account reduces it to 163.[74] If it were necessary to make choice of either, we should not hesitate to adopt the smaller number.

The Abbaye and La Force were the next objects of attack. Here there was some mockery of judicial observances. The form of trial was brief enough; a few armed ruffians constituted themselves a tribunal, before which the prisoners were led one by one. The investigation seldom went much beyond asking the name of the person, and referring to the charges alleged against him in the gaoler’s register. If these afforded ground for the suspicion of incivism, and the judges, as was almost always the case, decreed his death, their sentence, to prevent the dangerous efforts of despair, was conveyed in the equivocal terms, “Give the prisoner freedom,” or, “Convey him to La Force,” if he were confined at the Abbaye, and vice versÂ. He was then led from the room, and struck down, for the most part, before he reached the court–yard, with eager cruelty. Women as well as men mingled in this frightful scene, and inflicted the most loathsome indignities on the mangled bodies.

These proceedings were virtually authorized and encouraged by the presence of deputies from the Commune, wearing the municipal scarf, but nominally charged to select and deliver those who were imprisoned for debt. Not content with this negative sanction, Billaud Varennes, who was one of them, openly stimulated the murderers, promising them not only the plunder of the dead bodies, but the further gratification of a louis per day, as the reward of their good service. And it appears from the records of the time, that this money was actually paid. Yet much of the trifling property found on the persons of the slain was delivered up, it is said, for the use of the state; as if the actors of these horrors, by some strange caprice, had professed to be really disinterested.

An officer named Saint MÉard, who was confined in the Abbaye, has written, under the title, ‘Mon Agonie de trente–huit heures,’ an account of the feelings and conduct of the prisoners during the frightful period of suspense, which elapsed between the commencement of the massacres, and the moment when the fatal summons reached each of the sufferers. “Our most important occupation,” he says, “was to observe in what manner death might be met most easily when we should enter the place of slaughter. From time to time we sent one of our number to a turret–window, to let us know how the miserable men who were destroyed met their fate, and to consider, from what they told us, how it would be best for us to conduct ourselves. They said that those who stretched out their hands protracted their sufferings, because the sabre–strokes were deadened before they reached the head: that sometimes their hands and arms were even hewn off before they fell, and that those who placed their hands behind their backs would suffer least. It was on such horrid particulars as these that we had to deliberate. We calculated the advantages of this last–named position, and in turn advised each other to assume it when our turn should arrive.” It is hard to conceive a situation more trying to human fortitude. The prisoners generally met their fate with firmness, and in many instances boldly avowed and gloried in the principles and hereditary honours which were the sure passports to their fate. In some few instances the murderers relented. One or two men were preserved by the devoted interposition of female relatives. But very few of those who were imprisoned on political grounds lived to relate the horrors which they had passed through. Saint MÉard, although he boldly avowed himself a royalist, was one of the number.[75]

For four days did this frightful scene continue, unsanctioned by authority, save the instigation and half–expressed approbation of the Commune, perpetrated by an insignificant mob, who, with the smallest portion of energy, might have been overpowered at once. The Legislative Assembly sent some of their members to remonstrate; men known as Jacobins, who came back, and related that their interference had been ineffectual, and no further steps were taken. The National Guard remained quiet, waiting the orders of their superiors. Meanwhile, amid this fear or lethargy, for neither the Assembly nor the Guard viewed this butchery with favourable eyes, the judges and executioners ate, drank, and slept, and returned unmolested and with new vigour to their several functions.

The thirst of blood, once indulged, appears to have given rise to a sort of intoxication. The mob attacked even the BicÊtre, a prison containing none but criminals and lunatics. Here only they experienced resistance; and the resistance was desperate. The gaolers made common cause with the prisoners against the assailants; the stones and iron bars of the building supplying them with weapons. They made good their defence until cannon were brought against them, and they were mowed down in the mass.

Of the number of persons who perished in this fearful scene no exact account has ever been given. It is said, however, that not more than 200 or 300 of the prisoners committed for political offences are known to have escaped; and on the smallest reckoning the slain amounted to 2000 or 3000. Some estimate them at double that number. Truchat stated to the Legislative Assembly that 4000 had fallen. One statement, which is introduced only to show the tendency to exaggeration in these matters, raised the number to 12,800. Those who were imprisoned for debt were set free by order of the Commune; and to these we must look to make up the difference between the number of the slain and the total number of 8000, said to have been in prison on September 2. The bodies were interred in trenches, prepared, it is said, beforehand by the Commune, but their bones were subsequently transferred to the Catacombs. “In these melancholy regions, while other relics of mortality lie exposed all around, the remains of those who perished in the massacres of September are alone excluded from the public eye. The vault in which they repose is closed with a screen of freestone, as if relating to crimes unfit to be thought of even in the proper abode of death, and which France would willingly hide in oblivion.”[76]