DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

derisively called, had been condemned after a mock trial and executed, the basest means were devised to traduce the queen and enhance the sufferings of a martyrdom which she bore with unshaken courage and sustained dignity, while her son, a gentle and loveable child, was brutally done to death. The Catholic creed was held up to ridicule, and the blasphemous worship of the goddess Reason instituted in its place. Priests and nobles were hunted down like vermin, and their religious houses and mansions rifled of their contents and converted into jails. In these, regardless of sex, age, or pro- fession, on the mere suspicion of their having any aristocratic sympathies, or of concealing any precious metals which were claimed for State purposes, the highest and lowest of the land were indiscrimin- ately huddled together and butchered in cold blood, or carted to the guillotine. France was turned into a vast slaughter-house ; human sacrifices were offered up at the shrine of Liberty, in which hecatombs of the worthiest and most innocent victims perished, offering to the world a terrible example of what human nature is capable when unrestrained by morality, principle, or faith. Nations, like individuals, are the best judges of their own interests. The French nation glorifies a revolution which brought to her citizens liberty,