Half the priests were killed in the carriages, before they reached the prison gates.
Inside those gates, as inside the gates of all the other ordinary or improvised prisons, sat the revolutionary tribunes, twelve fierce men, who decided rapidly the fate of the prisoner, while they drank and smoked.
They were chiefly in shirt-sleeves. However, here and there might be seen white-handed men, who evidently were the master spirits of those terrible juries, which, in their way, were merciful, for they did not condemn a prisoner to death. If acquitted, the decree was “Set this gentleman at liberty;” if guilty, “To the Force,”—a decree which was a pun, for there was a prison called La Force, while the word “force” may be said to be “death;” therefore, “à la force” conveyed to the prisoner the idea that he was to be conveyed to the prison of La Force. In this belief, when approaching the prison gate, he had no idea death was at hand. The gate opened, and he was delivered to the force of an organised band, who quickly despatched him. Each band of executioners was controlled by a hidden chief. They moved from prison to prison as the revolutionary juries sat, and they did their work with the steadiness of actual business.
The prison massacres began with the Swiss, at the Abbaye. They knew what was coming. They were one hundred and fifty. A young officer led the way. He was very young and beautiful, and the murderers fell back. He folded his arms. The bayonets came nearer. He rushed forward, grasped five or six of the bayonets in his arms, and fell upon their points.
They all died—their commander, one Major Redding being the last. He said he would see his men out. There were not enough wagons to carry the bodies to the catacombs, so they were heaped up until the return of the tumbrils.
Benches were set for women to see these massacres, and they and their children danced round the dead bodies.
At the “Abbey” prison the prisoners were shot down in the chapel, and while two priests, eighty and white-haired, were preparing them for death.
Some anticipated execution by suicide.
One Sombreuil, a prisoner, was condemned to death, and he was loosed to the mob. Bayonets were at his breast, when his daughter, who was waiting in the midst of the murderers, flung herself before him and asked for his life.