"Come," said he, addressing his assistants. "We are wasting the Nation's time and keeping hosts of patriots waiting for their just revenge. Death to the enemies of the Republic!"
An officer unfolded a soiled and crumpled paper. He began to call the death-roll.
The aged Royalist went to the guillotine first. In an instant the huge knife descended; his life blood gushed forth and his head fell into the basket. The executioner grasped the head by its white locks and held it up, streaming with gore, to the gaze of the howling concourse.
"So perish all who hate France and liberty!" he shouted.
His shout was taken up and repeated from one end of the Place de la Révolution to the other.
"So perish all who hate France and liberty!"
It was a sublime mockery of justice, a deliberate treading under foot of all the rights of man. The sans-culottes and the tricoteuses rivaled each other in the loudness and strength of their applause.
The youthful Royalist was the next victim, and the preceding scene with all its horrors was repeated.
Then the Republican, accused of Modérantisme, met his fate, then the priest, and then, one by one, the three women, each execution having a similar finale.