The foreign foe is indeed driven back, but at what a cost! The rule of Robespierre’s fanatical minority that has seized the State, inaugurates the dreadful Reign of Terror. The great Revolutionary leader Danton––Minister of Justice in the earlier time––has himself caused to be established the Revolutionary Tribunal for the quick trial of the public’s foes, and the guillotine for the guilty. Robespierre uses it as a ready forged weapon for destroying all who do not think as he does.
In this storm-wracked world Jacques-Forget-Not is now a great judge and a most fanatical patriot. The avenger of the de Vaudreys heads the Revolutionary Tribunal. He is in his glory now, for the aristocrats that the mobs overlooked are sent in batches to the guillotine––on the most 134 trifling charges, or finally without accusation at all. The mere fact of being an aristocrat is a capital offence!
And in and among these slaughters is intermixed the destruction of Robespierre’s personal and political rivals––a work in which the vengeful Jacques-Forget-Not studies and obeys every whim of his master, for does not Jacques also have private grudges as yet unpaid?
... But Danton remains a popular hero. For his work in driving back the foreign foe, he is upraised in chair of state by the multitudes, heading a huzzaing procession and preceded by young girls strewing flowers.
None of the bloody butchery has been Danton’s. He has been too busy fighting Prussia, Austria and Savoy. Today, as he sits in the chair of state acknowledging the acclamations, his heart wells in gratitude to Henriette who had once saved his life––no face of treasured memory so dear as hers!
LOVE, MASTER OF HEARTS.
Confessedly, under the New Tyranny, there is nothing to engage the great heart and soul. Sick of the murderous scramble for pelf and power, he withdraws from most political activity, though still able to exert a wide influence.