DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

fo BRK) constitutional monarchy, and securing the happiness of the people, consummated the change in a reck- less and precipitate manner. Instead of gradually pruning the decayed outgrowths of the ancient institutions, and of grafting reforms upon those which were still healthy and useful, it ruthlessly destroyed them root and branch. Regardless of the fact that order and security are the essentials of efficient government and of the progress of nations, the Assembly disturbed every vested in- terest and paved the way for those grim factions whose sole object is chaos. Thus the Convention was composed of the nominees of anarchical and socialistic clubs, whose leaders, under the guise of a republic, attained supreme power on the ruins of all social and political systems. They merely sub- stituted one despotism for another, the despotism of the mob for the despotism of the monarchy. During the next three years, in the name of liberty, the most tyrannical government that ever disgraced any country in any age engaged on a work of destruction and violence, in sheer daia- bolical wantonness. Scenes of such profanity and atrocity were enacted that humanity recoils at their mere mention. The king having been deposed, he and his family were imprisoned and treated with studied contumely. When Louis Capet, as he was then