But only after the Terror ended.
With Cholier’s after-death triumph, the “moderates” began to fall. Ten of the municipals of Lyons (the place of Cholier’s exploits) were beheaded in one day, and a mine was exploded which destroyed the finest parts of the city.
Lyons was almost annihilated. At a cost of half a million of money (English), houses worth twelve millions were destroyed. Why? France was mad. So hurriedly was this destruction effected, that hundreds of the workmen themselves were buried in the ruins.
Life, however, was cheap.
Rags only were to be seen—a decent dress was equivalent to condemnation. The city was dead but for the thunder of fallen houses, the roar of cannon and the rattle of musketry mowing down suspected people, and the shrill cry of the ragged as they marked another head fall beneath the guillotine knife. It was now looked upon as a distinction, and reserved only for important people.
An entire generation was destroyed in Lyons alone. Great houses were unowned—for their owners were dead. Castles, churches, factories, work-shops, were closed, for their heads had all passed under the guillotine.
Starvation increased, for the land lay a-dying.
The guillotine was getting old and worn-out at Lyons.
One morning, sixty-four are marched out to death. They are bound, and ranged in a line before an open trench. Three pieces of cannon, loaded with bullets, sweep the ranks. Not half are touched. “Forward!” is the word given to the dragoons, who hack and shoot down the victims. This lasts two whole hours.
Nine hundred and thirty executioners, in the shape of an entire regiment, were to send their victims, marshalled in a row, into eternity at the same moment. At the order “Fire!” four bullets struck at the life of the victims, all of whom are tied to a rope stretched from tree to tree.