The Duty of American Women to Their Country

by Catharine Esther Beecher

“Cut them down!” cries the populace; and again another portion of the people’s representatives are led forth to death.

And now Robespierre, the leader of the lowest mob of all, is supreme dictator, and all power is lodged with this coldest-blooded ruffian that ever doomed his fellow-beings to a violent death. This was the Reign of Terror, when the mob had gained complete mastery, and this man, its advocate and organ, administered its awful energies. Look, then, for a moment, at the picture.

But the horrors of this period are so incredible, the atrocities so monstrous, that the tale will be regarded with distrust, without some previous indication of the causes which led to such results.

Let it be remembered, then, that this whole revolutionary movement was, in fact, a war of the common people upon the classes above them. Let it be remembered, too, that the French people, by the press, and by emissaries all over Europe, had invoked the lower classes of all nations to make common cause with them. “War to the palace, and peace to the cottage,” was their watchword. Every throne began to shake, and every person of rank, talents, and wealth felt his own safety involved in the contest. It was thus that the revolutionary leaders felt that they were contending for their lives, against the whole wealth, aristocracy, and monarchical power of Europe.

In France itself, individual ambition, hate, envy, or vengeance added fearful power to this war of contending classes. Not only every leader, but every individual, found in the opposing party some rival to displace, or some private grudge to revenge, while ten thousand aspirants for office demanded sacrifices, in order to secure vacated places. At last the struggle became so imbittered and desperate, that each man looked out only for himself. Friend gave up friend to save his own life, or to secure political advancement, till confidence between man and man perished, and society became a mass of warring elements, excited by every dreadful passion.

Few men are deliberately cruel from the mere love of cruelty. Thousands, under the influence of fear, revenge, ambition, or hate, become selfish, reckless, and cruel. When, too, in conflicts where men feel that by the hands of opponents they have lost property, home, honour, and country; when they have seen their dearest friends slaughtered or starved, then, when the hour of retaliation arrives, pity and sympathy are dead, and every baleful passion rages. Thus almost every man in the conflict had suffered: if a democrat, from those above him; if an aristocrat, from those below him.

Meantime, religion, that powerful principle in humanizing and restraining bad passions, had well-nigh taken her flight. The war upon the clergy at length turned to a war upon the religion they represented, till atheism became the prevailing principle of the nation.

By a public act, the leaders of the people declared their determination “to dethrone the King of Heaven, as well as the monarchs of the earth.” For this end, the apostate clergy, put in the places of those exiled, were induced to come before the bar of the National Legislature and publicly abjure Christianity, and declare that “no other national religion was now required but liberty, equality, and morality.”

On this occasion, crowds of drunken artisans appeared before the bar of the house, trampling under foot the cross, the sacramental vases, and other emblems of religious faith. A vile woman, dressed as the Goddess of Reason, was publicly embraced by the presiding officer of the National Legislature, and conducted by him to a magnificent car, and followed by immense crowds to the grand Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, where she was seated on an altar, and there received the worship of the multitudes. The Sabbath, by a national decree, was abolished; the Bible was burned publicly by the executioner; and on the graveyards was inscribed, “Death is an eternal sleep!”

At Lyons, a similar scene was enacted, where a fête in honour of Liberty was celebrated. The churches were all closed, the Decade, or Sabbath of Reason, proclaimed, and an image of a vile character was carried in procession, followed by vast crowds, shouting, “Down with the aristocrats! Long life to the guillotine!” After the image came an ass, bearing the Cross, the Bible, and the communion service; and these were led to an altar, where a fire was lighted, the Cross and Bible burned, the communion bread trampled under foot, and the ass made to drink out of the communion cup. Wherever democracy reigned, the services of religion were interrupted, the burial service vanished, baptisms ceased, the sick and dying were unconsoled by religion, while every species of vice, obscenity, and licentiousness were practised without concealment or control. The establishments for charity, the hospitals, and all humane institutions were swept away, and their funds seized by the agents of the people. Even the sepulchres of the dead were upturned. The noble, the wise, and the ancient, the barons of feudal ages, the heroes of the Crusades, the military chieftains, the ancient kings, resting in long-hallowed tombs, the mightiest monarchs of the nation, the “chief ones of the earth,” were moved from their rest, and rose to meet the coming of this awful day, while the treasures of their tombs were rifled by vulgar hands, and their very sculls kicked around as footballs for sport.