Nicholas put his hand over her mouth. They had traversed half the street in safety, when a drunken barber, trying to strike off her cap with his knife, wounded her in the forehead. The men about believed her condemned, and in a few moments she was dead, her head cut off, and set amongst the glasses on the counter of a wine-shop, where they drank to her death. The barber then set the head upon a pole, and carried it in procession to the Temple. There the crowd forced an entrance, and insisted upon shewing the head to the ex-Queen.
The King was called upon to show himself to the people; and though an unknown friend endeavored to prevent Louis from seeing the head, the kind intention was foiled, and the King recognised the features. Marie Antoinette was now demanded, and she presented herself to the people; but the King, active for once, saved his wife from the sight of poor Lamballe’s head. She only learnt what had happened in the evening.
Three days’ murders! At two other prisons, five hundred and seventy-five victims awaited burial. At the end of the three days, the murder of women was common. A beautiful girl, one of the people, having wounded her lover from jealousy, and he being a national soldier, she was burnt alive, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, suggested by the wretched woman, “La Belle Heleise,” whose advancing madness was her excuse. Her own time, when she was to be lashed by her own sex, was fast approaching.
A negro—a huge giant—was especially famous during these three days. He, it is said, killed over two hundred. He gave himself no rest; stopped only to drink wine, and, naked to the waist, was a fearful sight, seen, as he habitually was, with the fair head of a slain woman swinging in his left hand. At last, he himself was slain, but not for two years, during which, where blood flowed, he was ever to be seen. At the end, he said he had revenged himself, not upon the enemies of France, but upon the enemies of his race—the whites.
It is said ten thousand fell in those three days and nights.
The murderers began at last to turn upon one another. Especially was this the case with the bands who adopted death by burning.
A weaver—one Laurent—drew up a list of those it was intended to kill, and placed upon it the name of a tradesman, who refused to give him credit. The tradesman, having a friend in a member of the National Assembly, threw himself upon his protection. The name was erased, and Laurent’s written above it; and when Laurent pointed to the tradesman at the place of execution, he was himself seized, and cast into the flames.
Meanwhile, the Prussians on the frontier were preparing to advance.
This threat of invasion gave the public sentiment an impetus towards panic, which there was no resisting.
The National Assembly, which was composed, for the greater part, of men of ripe age, was practically abolished by the constitution of a “Convocation,” in which the majority of the men of power were under thirty, while amongst them, several were scarcely more than of age.